\ 


<£&ition 


REPRESENTATIVE    MEN 

BEING  VOLUME  IV. 
OF 

EMERSON'S  COMPLETE  WORKS 


REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 


SEVEN  LECTURES 


BY 


RALPH    WALDO    EMERSON 


ant!  Hetoteefc  Litton 


BOSTON 

HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  AND   COMPANY 
New  York:  11  East  Seventeenth  Street 


1884 


Copyright,  1876, 
BY  RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON. 

Copyright,  1883, 
BY  EDWARD  W.  EMERSON. 

-2-  *<>  3~*3 
All  rights  reserved. 


The  Riverside  Press,  Cambridge  : 
Electrotyped  and  Printed  by  U.  0.  lloughton  &  Co. 


CONTENTS. 

PAGB 

I.  USES  OF  GREAT  MEN 7 

II.   PLATO;  OR,  THE  PHILOSOPHER     ....          39 
PLATO  :  NEW  READINGS 78 

III.  SWEDENBORG  J   OR,  THE   MYSTIC     ....  89 

IV.  MONTAIGNE  ;  OR,  THE  SKEPTIC        ....     141 
V.   SHAKSPEARE;  OR,  THE  POET        .        .        .        .        179 

VI.  NAPOLEON;  OR,  THE  MAN  OF  THE  WORLD     .        .211 
VII.    GOETHE  ;  OR,  THE  WRITER 247 


USES   OF  GREAT  MEN. 


I. 

USES  OF  GREAT  MEN. 


IT  is  natural  to  believe  in  great  men.  If  the 
companions  of  our  childhood  should  turn  out  to  be 
heroes,  and  their  condition  regal,  it  would  not  sur 
prise  us.  All  mythology  opens  with  demigods,  and 
the  circumstance  is  high  and  poetic  ;  that  is,  their 
genius  is  paramount.  In  the  legends  of  the  Gau 
tama,  the  first  men  ate  the  earth  and  found  it  deli- 
ciously  sweet. 

Nature  seems  to  exist  for  the  excellent.  The 
world  is  upheld  by  the  veracity  of  good  men  :  they 
make  the  earth  wholesome.  They  who  lived  with 
them  found  life  glad  and  nutritious.  Life  is  sweet 
and  tolerable  only  in  our  belief  in  such  society ; 
and,  actually  or  ideally,  we  manage  to  live  with 
superiors.  We  call  our  children  and  our  lands  by 
their  names.  Their  names  are  wrought  into  the 
verbs  of  language,  their  works  and  effigies  are  in 
our  houses,  and  every  circumstance  of  the  day  re 
calls  an  anecdote  of  them. 

The  search  after  the  great  man  is  the  dream  of 


10  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

youth  and  the  most  serious  occupation  of  manhood. 
We  travel  into  foreign  parts  to  find  his  works,  — 
if  possible,  to  get  a  glimpse  of  him.  But  we  are 
put  off  with  fortune  instead.  You  say,  the  Eng 
lish  are  practical ;  the  Germans  are  hospitable  ;  in 
Valencia  the  climate  is  delicious  ;  and  in  the  hills 
of  the  Sacramento  there  is  gold  for  the  gathering. 
Yes,  but  I  do  not  travel  to  find  comfortable,  rich 
and  hospitable  people,  or  clear  sky,  or  ingots  that 
cost  too  much.  But  if  there  were  any  magnet  that 
would  point  to  the  countries  and  houses  where  a:Pe 
the  persons  who  are  intrinsically  rich  and  power 
ful,  I  would  sell  all  and  buy  it,  and  put  myself  on 
the  road  to-day. 

The  race  goes  with  us  on  their  credit.  The 
knowledge  that  in  tfce  city  is  a  man  who  invented 
the  railroad,  raises  the  credit  of  all  the  citizens. 
But  enormous  populations,  if  they  be  beggars,  are 
disgusting,  like  moving  cheese,  like  hills  of  ants  or 
of  fleas,  —  the  more,  the  worse. 

Our  religion  is  the  love  and  cherishing  of  these 
patrons.  The  gods  of  fable  are  the  shining  mo 
ments  of  great  men.  We  run  all  our  vessels  into 
one  mould.  Our  colossal  theologies  of  Judaism, 
Christism,  Buddhism,  Mahometism,  are  the  neces 
sary  and  structural  action  of  the  human  mind. 
The  student  of  history  is  like  a  man  going  into  a 
warehouse  to  buy  cloths  or  carpets.  He  fancies  he 


USES  OF  GREAT  MEN.  11 

has  a  new  article.  If  he  go  to  the  factory,  he  shall 
find  that  his  new  stuff  still  repeats  the  scrolls  and 
rosettes  which  are  found  on  the  interior  walls  of 
the  pyramids  of  Thebes.  Our  theism  is  the  purifi 
cation  of  the  human  mind.  Man  can  paint,  or 
make,  or  think,  nothing  but  man.  He  believes 
that  the  great  material  elements  had  their  origin 
from  his  thought.  And  our  philosophy  finds  one 
essence  collected  or  distributed. 

If  now  we  proceed  to  inquire  into  the  kinds  of 
service  we  derive  from  others,  let  us  be  warned  of 
the  danger  of  modern  studies,  and  begin  low 
enough.  We  must  not  contend  against  love,  or 
deny  the  substantial  existence  of  other  people.  I 
know  not  what  would  happen  to  us.  We  have  so 
cial  strengths.  Our  affection  towards  others  cre 
ates  a  sort  of  vantage  or  purchase  which  nothing 
will  supply.  I  can  do  that  by  another  which  I  can 
not  do  alone.  I  can  say  to  you  what  I  cannot  first 
say  to  myself.  Other  men  are  lenses  through 
which  we  read  our  own  minds.  Each  man  seeks 
those  of  different  quality  from  his  own,  and  such 
as  are  good  of  their  kind ;  that  is,  he  seeks  other 
men,  and  the  otherest.  The  stronger  the  nature, 
the  more  it  is  reactive.  Let  us  have  the  quality 
pure.  A  little  genius  let  us  leave  alone.  A  main 
difference  betwixt  men  is,  whether  they  attend  their 


12  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

own  affair  or  not.  Man  is  that  noble  endogenous 
plant  which  grows,  like  the  palm,  from  within  out- 
v/ard.  His  own  affair,  though  impossible  to  others, 
he  can  open  with  celerity  and  in  sport.  It  is  easy 
to  sugar  to  be  sweet  and  to  nitre  to  be  salt.  We 
take  a  great  deal  of  pains  to  waylay  and  entrap 
that  which  of  itself  will  fall  into  our  hands.  I 
count  him  a  great  man  who  inhabits  a  higher 
sphere  of  thought,  into  wkich  other  men  rise  with 
labor  and  difficulty ;  he  has  but  to  open  his  eyes  to 
see  things  in  a  true  light  and  in  large  relations, 
whilst  they  must  make  painful  corrections  and 
keep  a  vigilant  eye  on  many  sources  of  error.  His 
service  to  us  is  of  like  sort.  It  costs  a  beautiful 
person  no  exertion  to  paint  her  image  on  our  eyes  ; 
yet  how  splendid  is  that  benefit !  It  costs  no  more 
for  a  wise  soul  to  convey  his  quality  to  other  men. 
And  every  one  can  do  his  best  thing  easiest.  "Peu 
de  moyens,  beaucoup  (Teffet"  He  is  great  who  ; 
is  what  he  is  from  nature,  and  who  never  reminds 
us  of  others. 

But  he  must  be  related  to  us,  and  our  life  receive 
from  him  some  promise  of  explanation.  I  cannot 
tell  what  I  would  know ;  but  I  have  observed  there 
are  persons  who,  in  their  character  and  actions,  an 
swer  questions  which  I  have  not  skill  to  put.  One  , 
man  answers  some  question  which  none  of  his  con-  j 

temporaries  put,  and  is  isolated.      The  past  and    j 

• 


USES  OF  GREAT  MEN. 


r* 
-    13 


passing  religions  and  philosophies  answer  soi 
other  question.  Certain  men  affect  us  as  rich  pos 
sibilities,  but  helplgaa.  to  themselveg^and  to  their 
times,  —  the  sport  perhaps  of  some  instinct  that 
rules  in  the  air  ;  —  they  do  not  speak  to  our  want. 
But  the  great  are  near  ;  we  know  them  at  sight. 
They  satisfy  expectation  and  fall  into  place.  What 
is  good  is  effectiye,j  generative  ;  makes  for  itself 
room,  food  and  allies*  A  sound  apple  produces 
seed,  —  a  hybrid  does  not.  Is  a  man  in  his  place, 
he  is  constructive,  fertile,  magnetic,  inundating  ar 
mies  with  his  purpose,  which  is  thus  executed. 
The  river  makes  its  own  shores,  and  each 
mate  idea  makes  its  own  channels  and  welcome,  —  \y 
harvests  for  food,  institutions  for  expression,  weap 
ons  to  fight  with  and  disciples  to  explain  it.  The 
true  artist  has  the  planet  for  his  pedestal  ;  the  ad 
venturer,  after  years  of  strife,  has  nothing  broader 
than  his  own  shoes. 

Our   common   discourse   respects   two   kinds   of  * 
use  or  service  from  superior  men.     Direct  giving 
is  agreeable   to   the   early  belief   of   men  ;    direct     '^ 
giving  of  material  or  metaphysical  aid,  as  of  health, 
eternal  youth,  fine  senses,  arts  of  healing,  magical 
power  and   prophecy.      The  boy  believes  there  is 
a  teacher   who  can  sell   him   wisdom,,      Churches 
believe  in  imputed  merit.      But,  in  strictness,  we 
are  not  much  cognizant  of  direct  serving.     Man  is 


. 
11  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

endogenous,  and  education  is  Ms  unfolding.  The 
aid  we  have  from  others  is  mechanical  compared 
with  the  discoveries  of  nature  in  us.  What  is  thus 
learned  is  delightful  in  the  doing,  and  the  effect 
remains.  Right  ethics  are  central  and  go  from  the 
soul  outward.  Gift  is  contrary  to  the  law  of  the 
universe.  Serving  others  is  serving  us.  I  must 
absolve  me  to  myself.  '  Mind  thy  affair,'  says  the 
spirit :  — 6  coxcomb,  would  you  meddle  with  the 
skies,  or  with  other  people  ? '  *  Indirect  service  is. 
left.  Men  have  a  pictorial  or  representative  quality, 
and  serve  us  in  the  intellect.  Behmen  and  Sweden- 
"borg  saw  that  things  were  representative.  Men 
are  also  representative ;  first,  of  things,  and  sec 
ondly,  of  ideas. 

As  plants  convert  the  minerals  into  food  for 
animals,  so  each  man  converts  some  raw  material 
in  nature  to  human  use.  The  inventors  of  fire, 
electricity,  magnetism,  iron,  lead,  glass,  linen,  silk, 
cotton ;  the  makers  of  tools  ;  the  inventor  of  deci 
mal  notation  ;  the  geometer ;  the  engineer ;  the 
musician,  —  severally  make  an  easy  way  for  all, 
through  unknown  and  impossible  confusions.  Each 
man  is  by  secret  liking  connected  with  some  district 
of  nature,  whose  agent  and  interpreter  he  is  ;  as 
Linnseus,  of  plants ;  Huber,  of  bees ;  Fries,  of 
lichens  ;  Van  Mons,  of  pears  ;  Dalton,  of  atomic 
forms  ;  Euclid,  of  lines ;  Newton,  of  fluxions. 


USES  OF  GREAT  MEN.  15 

A  man  is  a  centre  for  nature,  running  out  threads 
of  relation  through  every  thing,  fluid  and  solid, 
material  and  elemental.  The  earth  rolls ;  every 
clod  and  stone  conies  to  the  meridian :  so  every 
organ,  function,  acid,  crystal,  grain  of  dust,  has  its 
relation  to  the  brain.  It  waits  long,  but  its  turn 
comes.  Each  plant  has  its  parasite,  and  each  cre 
ated  thing  its  lover  and  poet.  Justice  has  already 
been  done  to  steam,  to  iron,  to  wood,  to  coal,  to 
loadstone,  to  iodine,  to  corn  and  cotton ;  but  how 
few  materials  are  yet  used  by  our  arts !  The  mass 
of  creatures  and  of  qualities  are  still  hid  and  expec 
tant.  It  would  seem  as  if  each  waited,  like  the 
enchanted  princess  in  fairy  tales,  for  a  destined/7 
human  deliverer.  Each  must  be  disenchanted  and 
walk  forth  to  the  day  in  human  shape.  In  the 
history  of  discovery,  the  ripe  and  latent  truth  seems 
to  have  fashioned  a  brain  for  itself.  .  A  magnet 
must  be  made  man  in  some  Gilbert,  or  Swedenborg, 
or  Oersted,  before  the  general  mind  can  come  to 
entertain  its  powers. 

If  we  limit  ourselves  to  the  first  advantages, 
a  sober  grace  adheres  to  the  mineral  and  botanic 
*kingdoms,  which,  in  the  highest  moments,  comes 
up  as  the  charm  of  nature,  —  the  glitter  of  the 
spar,  the  sureness  of  affinity,  the  veracity  of  angles. 
Light  and  darkness,  heat  and  cold,  hunger  and 
food,  sweet  and  sour,  solid,  liquid  and  gas,  circle 


16  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

us  round  in  a  wreath  of  pleasures,  and,  "by  their 
agreeable  quarrel,  beguile  the  day  of  life.  The 
eye  repeats  every  day  the  first  eulogy  on  things,  — 
u  He  saw  that  they  were  good."  We  know  where 
to  find  them  ;  and  these  performers  are  relished  all 
the  more,  after  a  little  experience  of  the  pretending 
races.  We  are  entitled  also  to  higher  advantages. 
Something  is  wanting  to  science  until  it  has  been 
humanized.  The  table  of  logarithms  is  one  thing, 
and  its  vital  play  in  botany,  music,  optics  and  archi 
tecture,  another.  There  are  advancements  to  num 
bers,  anatomy,  architecture,  astronomy,  little  sus 
pected  at  first,  when,  by  union  with  intellect  and 
will,  they  ascend  into  the  life  and  reappear  in 
conversation,  character  and  politics. 

But  this  comes  later.  We  speak  now  only  of 
our  acquaintance  with  them  in  their  own  sphere 
and  the  way  in  which  they  seem  to  fascinate  and 
draw  to  them  some  genius  who  occupies  himself 
with  one  thing,  all  his  life  long.  The  possibility 
of  interpretation  lies  in  the  identity  of  the  observer 
with  the  observed.  Each  material  thing  has  its 
,  celestial  side ;  has  its  translation,  through  humaiinry, 
into  the  spiritual  and  necessary  sphere  where  it 
plays  a  part  as  indestructible  as  any  other.  And 
to  these,  their  ends,  all  things  continually  ascend. 
/  The  gases  gather  to  the  solid  firmament :  the 
chemic  lump  arrives  at  the  plant,  and  grows,* 


USES  OF  GREAT  MEN.  17 

arrives  at  the  quadruped,  and  walks ;  arrives  at 
the  man,  and  thinks.  But  also  the  constituency 
determines  the  vote  of  the  representative.  He  is 
not  only  representative,  but  participant.  Like  can 
only  be  known  by  like.  The  reason  why  he  knows 
about  them  is  that  he  is  of  them  ;  he  has  just  come 
out  of  nature,  or  from  being  a  part  of  that  thing. 
Animated  chlorine  knows  of  chlorine,  and  incarnate 
zinc,  of  zinc.  Their  quality  makes  his  career ;  and 
he  can  variously  publish  their  virtues,  because  they 
compose  him.  Man,  made  of  the  dust  of  the  worldt 
does  not  forget  his  origin  ;  and  all  that  is  yet  inan 
imate  will  one  day  speak  and  reason.  Unpublished 
nature  will  have  its  whole  secret  told.  Shall  we 
say  that  quartz  mountains  will  pulverize  into  innu 
merable  Werners,  Yon  Buchs  and  Beaumonts,  and 
the  laboratory  of  the  atmosphere  holds  in  solution 
I  know  not  what  Berzeliuses  and  Davys  ? 

Thus  we  sit  by  the  fire  and  take  hold  on  the 
poles  of  the  earth.  This  quasi  omnipresence  sup 
plies  the  imbecility  of  our  condition.  In  one  of 
those  celestial  days  when  heaven  and  earth  meet 
and  adorn  each  other,  it  seems  a  poverty  that  we 
can  only  spend  it  once  :  we  wish  for  a  thousand 
heads,  a  thousand  bodies,  that  we  might  celebrate 
its  immense  beauty  in  many  ways  and  places.  Is 
this  fancy  ?  Well,  in  good  faith,  we  are  multiplied^ 
by  our  proxies.  How  easily  we  adopt  their  labors ! 


18  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

Every  ship  that  comes  to  America  got  its  chart 
from  Columbus.  Every  novel  is  a  debtor  to  Ho 
mer.  Every  carpenter  who  shaves  with  a  fore- 
plane  borrows  the  g%enius  of  a  forgotten  inventor. 
Life  is  girt  all  round  with  a  zodiac  of  sciences,  the 
contributions  of  men  who  have  perished  to  add 
their  point  of  light  to  our  sky.  Engineer,  broker, 
jurist,  physician,  moralist,  theologian,  and  every 
man,  inasmuch  as  he  has  any  science,  —  is  a  definer 
and  map-maker  of  the  latitudes  and  longitudes  of 
our  condition.  These  road-makers  on  every  hand 
enrich  us.  We  must  extend  the  area  of  life  and 
multiply  our  relations.  We  are  as  much  gainers 
by  finding  a  new  property  in  the  old  earth  as  by 
acquiring  a  new  planet. 

We  are  too  passive  in  the  reception  of  these  ma 
terial  or  semi-material  aids.  We  must  not  be  sacks 
and  stomachs.  To  ascend  one  step,  —  we  are  bet 
ter  served  through  our  sympathy.  Activity  is  con 
tagious.  Looking  where  others  look,  and  convers 
ing  with  the  same  things,  we  catch  the  charm  which 
lured  them.  Napoleon  said,  "  You  must  not  fight 
too  often  with  one  enemy,  or  you  will  teach  him  all 
your  art  of  war."  Talk  much  with  any  man  of 
vigorous  mind,  and  we  acquire  very  fast  the  habit 
of  looking  at  things  in  the  same  light,  and  on  each 
occurrence  we  anticipate  his  thought.  ,  / 

Men  are  helpful  through   the  intellect  and  the 


USES  OF  GREAT  MEN.  19 

affections.  Other  help  I  find  a  false  appearance. 
If  you  affect  to  give  me  bread  and  fire,  I  perceive 
that  I  pay  for  it  the  full  price,  and  at  last  it  leaves 
me  as  it  found  me,  neither  better  nor  worse :  but 
all  mental  and  moral  force  is  a  positive  good.  It 
goes  out  from  you,  whether  you  will  or  not,  and 
profits  me  whom  you  never  thought  of.  I  cannot 
even  hear  of  personal  vigor  of  any  kind,  great 
power  of  performance,  without  fresh  resolution. 
We  are  emulous  of  all  that  man  can  do.  Cecil's 
saying  of  Sir  Walter  Raleigh,  "I  know  that  he 
can  toil  terribly,"  is  an  electric  touch.  So  are 
Clarendon's  portraits,  —  of  Hampden,  "  who  was 
of  an  industry  and  vigilance  not  to  be  tired  out  or 
wearied  by  the  most  laborious,  and  of  parts  not  to 
be  imposed  on  by  the  most  subtle  and  sharp,  and 
of  a  personal  courage  equal  to  his  best  parts  ;  "  — 
of  Falkland,  "  who  was  so  severe  an  adorer  of 
truth,  that  he  could  as  easily  have  given  himself 
leave  to  steal,  as  to  dissemble."  We  cannot  read 
Plutarch  without  a  tingling,  of  the  blood ;  and  I 
accept  the  saying  of  the  Chinese  Mencius:  "  A  sage 
is  the  instructor  of  a  hundred  ages.  When  the 
manners  of  Loo  are  heard  of,  the  stupid  become  in 
telligent,  and  the  wavering,  determined." 

This  is  the  moral  of  biography;  yet  it  is  hard 
for  departed  men  to  touch  the  quick  like  our  own 
companions,  whose  names  may  not  last  as  long. 


20  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

What  is  he  whom  I  never  think  of?  Whilst  in 
every  solitude  are  those  who  succor  our  genius  and 
stimulate  us  in  wonderful  manners.  There  is  a 
power  in  love  to  divine  another's  destiny  better 
than  that  other  can,  and,  by  heroic  encouragements, 
hold  him  to  his  task.  What  has  friendship  so  sig 
nal  as  its  sublime  attraction  to  whatever  virtue  is 
in  us  ?  We  will  never  more  think  cheaply  of  our 
selves,  or  of  life.  We  are  piqued  to  some  purpose, 
and  the  industry  of  the  diggers  on  the  railroad  will 
not  again  shame  us. 

Under  this  head  too  falls  that  homage,  very  pure 
as  I  think,  which  all  ranks  pay  to  the  hero  of  the 
day,  from  Coriolanus  and  Gracchus  down  to  Pitt, 
Lafayette,  Wellington,  Webster,  Lauiartiiie.  Hear 
the  shouts  in  the  street !  The  people  cannot  see  him 
enougho  They  delight  in  a  man.  Here  is  a  head 
and  a  trunk  !  What  a  front !  what  eyes  !  Atlaii- 
tean  shoulders,  and  the  whole  carriage  heroic,  with 
equal  inward  force  to  guide  the  great  machine ! 
This  pleasure  of  full  expression  to  that  which,  in 
their  private  experience  is  usually  cramped  and 
obstructed,  runs  also  much  higher,  and  is  the  se 
cret  of  the  reader's  joy  in  literary  genius.  Nothing- 
is  kept  back.  There  is  fire  enough  to  fuse  the 
mountain  of  ore.  Shakspeare's  principal  merit 
may  be  conveyed  in  saying  that  he  of  all  men  best  \ 
understands  the  English  language,  and  can  say 


USES  OF   GREAT  MEN.  21 

what  he  will.  Yet  these  unchoked  channels  and 
floodgates  of  expression  are  only  health  or  fortu 
nate  constitution.  Shakspeare's  name  suggests 
other  and  purely  intellectual  benefits. 
I" .  Senates  and  sovereigns  have  no  compliment,  with 
their  medals,  swords  and  armorial  coats,  like  the 
addressing  to  a  human  being  thoughts  out  of  a 
certain  height,  and  presupposing  his  intelligence. 
This  honor,  which  is  possible  in  personal  intercourse 
scarcely  twice  in  a  lifetime,  genius  perpetually 
pays ;  contented  if  now  and  then  in  a  century  the 
proffer  is  accepted.  The  indicators  of  the  values  of 
matter  are  degraded  to  a  sort  of  cooks  and  con 
fectioners,  on  the  appearance  of  the  indicators  of 
ideas.  Genius  is  the  naturalist  or  geographer  of 
the  supersensible  regions,  and  draws  their  map ; 
and,  by  acquainting  us  with  new  fields  of  activity, 
cools  our  affection  for  the  old.  These  are  at  once 
accepted  as  the  reality,  of  which  the  world  we  have 
conversed  with  is  the  show. 

We  go  to  the  gymnasium  and  the  swimming- 
school  to  see  the  power  and  beauty  of  the  body ; 
there  is  the  like  pleasure  and  a  higher  benefit  from 
witnessing  intellectual  feats  of  all  kinds ;  as  feats 
of  memory,  of  mathematical  combination,  great 
power  of  abstraction,  the  transmutings  of  the  imag 
ination,  even  versatility  and  concentration,  —  as 
these  acts  expose  the  invisible  organs  and  members 


22  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

of  the  mind,  which  respond,  member  for  member, 
to  the  parts  of  the  body.  For  we  thus  enter  a  new 
gymnasium,  and  learn  to  choose  men  by  their  truest 
marks,  taught,  with  Plato,  "  to  choose  those  who 
can,  without  aid  from  the  eyes  or  any  other  sense, 
proceed  to  truth  and  to  being."  Foremost  among 
these  activities  are  the  summersaults,  spells  and 
resurrections  wrought  by  the  imagination.  When 
this  wakes,  a  man  seems  to  multiply  ten  times  or 
a  thousand  times  his  force.  It  opens  the  delicious 
sense  of  indeterminate  size  and  inspires  an  auda 
cious  mental  habit.  We  are  as  elastic  as  the  gas 
of  gunpowder,  and  a  sentence  in  a  book,  or  a  word 
dropped  in  conversation,  sets  free  our  fancy,  and 
instantly  our  heads  are  bathed  with  galaxies,  and 
our  feet  tread  the  floor  of  the  Pit.  And  this  bene 
fit  is  real  because  we  are  entitled  to  these  enlarge 
ments,  and  once  having  passed  the  bounds  shall 
never  again  be  quite  the  miserable  pedants  we  were. 
The  high  functions  of  the  intellect  are  so  allied 
that  some  imaginative  power  usually  appears  in 
I  all  eminent  minds,  even  in  arithmeticians  of  the 
I  first  class,  but  especially  in  meditative  men  of  an 
\  intuitive  habit  of  thought.  This  class  serve  us,  so 
that  they  have  the  perception  of  identity  and  the 
perception  of  reaction.  The  eyes  of  Plato,  Shak- 
speare,  Swedenborg,  Goethe,  never  shut  on  either 
of  these  laws.  The  perception  of  these  laws  is  a 


USES  OF  GREAT  MEN.  23 

kind  of  metre  of  tlie  mind.  Little  minds  are  little 
through  failure  to  see  them. 

Even  these  feasts  have  their  surfeit.  Our  de 
light  in  reason  degenerates  into  idolatry  of  the 
herald.  Especially  when  a  mind  of  powerful 
method  has  instructed  men,  we  find  the  examples 
of  oppression.  The  dominion  of  Aristotle,  the 
Ptolemaic  astronomy,  the  credit  of  Luther,  of  Ba 
con,  of  Locke ;  —  in  religion  the  history  of  hie 
rarchies,  of  saints,  and  the  sects  which  have  taken 
the  name  of  each  founder,  are  in  point.  Alas ! 
every  man  is  such  a  victim.  The  imbecility  of  men 
is  always  inviting  the  impudence  of  power.  It  is 
the  delight  of  vulgar  talent  to  dazzle  and  to  blind 
the  beholder.  But  true  genius  seeks  to  defend  us 
from  itself.  True  genius  will  not  impoverish,  but 
will  liberate,  and  add  new  senses.  If  a  wise  man 
should  appear  in  our  village  he  would  create,  in 
those  who  conversed  with  him,  a  new  consciousness 
of  wealth,  by  opening  their  eyes  to  unobserved  ad 
vantages  ;  he  would  establish  a  sense  of  immovable 
equality,  calm  us  with  assurances  that  we  could  not 
be  cheated  ;  as  every  one  would  discern  the  checks 
and  guaranties  of  condition.  The  rich  would  see 
their  mistakes  and  poverty,  the  poor  their  escapes 
and  their  resources. 

But  nature  brings  all  this  about  in  due  time. 
Rotation  is  her  remedy.  The  soul  is  impatient  of 


24  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

masters  and  eager  for  change.  Housekeepers  say 
of  a  domestic  who  has  been  valuable,  "  She  had 
lived  with  me  long  enough."  We  are  tendencies, 
or  rather,  symptoms,  and  none  of  us  complete.  We 
touch  and  go,  and  sip  the  foam  of  many  lives.  Ro 
tation  is  the  la\T»of  nature.  When  nature  removes  I! 
a  great  man,  people  explore  the  horizon  for  a  suc 
cessor  ;  but  none  comes,  and  none  will.  His  class 
is  extinguished  with  him.  In  some  other  and  quite 
different  field  the  next  man  will  appear ;  not  Jef 
ferson,  not  Franklin,  but  now  a  great  salesman, 
then  a  road-contractor,  then  a  student  of  fishes, 
then  a  buffalo-hunting  explorer,  or  a  semi-savage 
Western  general.  Thus  we  make  a  stand  against 
our  rougher  masters  ;  but  against  the  best  there  is 
a  finer  remedy.  The  power  which  they  communi 
cate  is  not  theirs.  When  we  are  exalted  by  ideas, 
we  do  not  owe  this  to  Plato,  but  to  the  idea,  to 
which  also  Plato  was  debtor. 

I  must  not  forget  that  we  have  a  special  debt 
to  a  single  elas^  Life  is  a  scale  of  degrees. 
Between  rank  and  rank  of  our  great  men  are 
wide  intervals.  Mankind  have  in  all  ages  attached 
themselves  to  a  few  persons  who  either  by  the 
quality  of  that  idea  they  embodied  or  by  the  large 
ness  of  their  reception  were  entitled  to  the  posi 
tion  of  leaders  and  law-givers.  These  teach  us  the 
qualities  of  primary  nature,  —  admit  us  to  the  con- 


USES  OF  GREAT  MEN.  25 

stitution  of  tilings.  We  swim,  day  by  day,  on  a 
river  of  delusions  and  are  effectually  amused  with 
houses  and  towns  in  the  air,  of  which  the  men 
about  us  are  dupes.  But  life  is  a  sincerity.  In 
lucid  intervals  we  say,  4  Let  there  be  an  entrance 
opened  for  me  into  realities ;  I  hUve  worn  the  fool's 
cap  too  long.'  We  will  know  the  meaning  of  our 
economies  and  politics.  Give  us  the  cipher,  and 
if  persons  and  things  are  scores  of  a  celestial  music, 
let  us  read  off  the  strains.  We  have  been  cheated 
of  our  reason ;  yet  there  have  been  sane  men,  who 
enjoyed  a  rich  and  related  existence.  What  they 
know,  they  know  for  us.  With  each  new  mind, 
a  new  secret  of  nature  transpires ;  nor  can  the 
Bible  be  closed  until  the  last  great  man  is  born. 
These  men  correct  the  delirium  of  the  animal 
spirits,  make  us  considerate  and  engage  us  to 
new  aims  and  powers.  The  veneration  of  man 
kind  selects  these  for  the  highest  place.  Witness 
the  multitude  of  statues,  pictures  and  memorials 
which  recall  their  genius  in  every  city,  village, 
house  and  ship :  — 

"  Ever  their  phantoms  arise  before  us, 
Our  loftier  brothers,  but  one  in  blood; 
At  bed  and  table  they  lord  it  o'er  us 
With  looks  of  beauty  and  words  of  good." 

How  to  illustrate  the  distinctive  benefit  of  ideas, 
the  service  rendered  by  those  who  introduce  moral 


26  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

truths  into  the  general  mind  ?  —  I  am  plagued, 
in  all  my  living,  with  a  perpetual  tariff  of  prices. 
If  I  work  in  my  garden  and  prune  an  apple-tree, 
I  am  well  enough  entertained,  and  could  continue 
indefinitely  in  the  like  occupation.  But  it  comes 
to  mind  that  a  day  is  gone,  and  I  have  got  this 
precious  nothing  done.  I  go  to  Boston  or  New 
York  and  run  up  and  down  on  my  affairs :  they 
are  sped,  but  so  is  the  day.  I  am  vexed  by  the 
recollection  of  this  price  I  have  paid  for  a  trifling 
advantage.  I  remember  the  peau  cTdne  on  which 
whoso  sat  should  have  his  desire,  but  a  piece  of 
the  skin  was  gone  for  every  wish.  I  go  to  a  con 
vention  of  philanthropists.  Do  what  I  can,  I 
cannot  keep  my  eyes  off  the  clock.  But  if  there 
should  appear  in  the  company  some  gentle  soul 
who  knows  little  of  persons  or  parties,  of  Caro 
lina  or  Cuba,  but  who  announces  a  law  that  dis 
poses  these  particulars,  and  so  certifies  me  of 
the  equity  which  checkmates  every  false  player, 
bankrupts  every  self-seeker,  and  apprises  me  of 
my  independence  on  any  conditions  of  country, 
or  time,  or  human  body,  — that  man  liberates  me  ; 
I  forget  the  clock.  I  pass  out  of  the  sore  relation 
to  persons.  I  am  healed  of  my  hurts.  I  am 
made  immortal  by  apprehending  my  possession 
of  incorruptible  goods.  Here  is  great  competition 
of  rich  and  poor.  We  live  in  a  market,  where 


USES  OF   GREAT  MEN.  27 

is  only  so  much  wheat,  or  wool,  or  land ;  and  if 
I  have  so  much  more,  every  other  must  have  so 
much  less.  I  seem  to  have  no  good  without 
breach  of  good  manners.  Nobody  is  glad  in  the 
gladness  of  another,  and  our  system  is  one  of 
war,  of  an  injurious  superiority.  Every  child  of 
the  Saxon  race  is  educated  to  wish  to  be  first.  It 
is  our  system ;  and  a  man  comes  to  measure  his 
greatness  by  the  regrets,  envies  and  hatreds  of  his 
competitors.  But  in  these  new  fields  there  is  room : 
here  are  no  self-esteems,  no  exclusions. 

I  admire  great  men  of  all  classes,  those  who 
stand  for  facts,  and  for  thoughts ;  I  like  rough  and 
smooth,  "  Scourges  of  God,"  and  "  Darlings  of  the 
human  race."  I  like  the  first  Caesar ;  and  Charles 
V.,  of  Spain;  and  Charles  XII.,  of  Sweden;  Rich 
ard  Plantagenet ;  and  Bonaparte,  in  France.  I 
applaud  a  sufficient  man,  an  officer  equal  to  his 
office  ;  captains,  ministers,  senators.  1  like  a  master 
standing  firm  on  legs  of  iron,  well-born,  rich,  hand 
some,  eloquent,  loaded  with  advantages,  drawing  all 
men  by  fascination  into  tributaries  and  supporters 
of  his  power.  Sword  and  staff,  or  talents  sword- 
like  or  staff-like,  carry  on  the  work  of  the  world. 
But  I  find  him  greater  when  he  can  abolish  himself 
and  all  heroes,  by  letting  in  this  element  of  reason, 
irrespective  of  persons,  this  subtilizer  and  irresist 
ible  upward  force,  into  our  thought,  destroying  in- 


28  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

dividualism ;  the  power  so  great  that  the  potentate 
is  nothing.  Then  he  is  a  monarch  who  gives  a  con 
stitution  to  his  people  ;  a  pontiff  who  preaches  the 
equality  of  souls  and  releases  his  servants  from 
their  barbarous  homages;  an  emperor  who  can 
spare  his  empire. 

But  I  intended  to  specify,  with  a  little  minute 
ness,  two  or  three  points  of  service.  Nature  never 
spares  the  opium  or  n,epenthe,  but  wherever  she 
mars  her  creature  with  some  deformity  or  defect, 
lays  her  poppies  plentifully  on  the  bruise,  and  the 
sufferer  goes  joyfully  through  life,  ignorant  of  the 
ruin  and  incapable  of  seeing  it,  though  all  the 
world  point  their  finger  at  it  every  day.  The 
worthless  and  offensive  members  of  society,  whose 
existence  is  a  social  pest,  invariably  think  them 
selves  the  most  ill-used  people  alive,  and  never  get 
over  their  astonishment  at  the  ingratitude  and 
selfishness  of  their  contemporaries.  Our  globe 
discovers  its  hidden  virtues,  not  only  in  heroes  and 
archangels,  but  in  gossips  and  nurses.  Is  it  not 
a  rare  contrivance  that  lodged  the  due  inertia  in 
every  creature,  the  conserving,  resisting  energy, 
the  anger  at  being  waked  or  changed  ?  Altogether 
independent  of  the  intellectual  force  in  each  is  the 
pride  of  opinion,  the  security  that  we  are  right. 
Not  the  feeblest  grandame,  not  a  mowing  idiott 


USES  OF   GREAT  MEN.  29 

but  uses  what  spark  of  perception  and  faculty  is 
left,  to  chuckle  and  triumph  in  his  or  her  opinion 
over  the  absurdities  of  all  the  rest.  Difference 
from  me  is  the  measure  of  absurdity.  Not  one 
has  a  misgiving  of  being  wrong.  Was  it  not  a 
bright  thought  that  made  things  cohere  with  this 
bitumen,  fastest  of  cements?  But,  in  the  midst 
of  this  chuckle  of  self-gratulation,  some  figure 
goes  by  which  Thersites  too  can  love  and  admire. 
This  is  he  that  should  marshall  us  the  way  we 
were  going.  There  is  no  end  to  his  aid.  With 
out  Plato  we  should  almost  lose  our  faith  in  the 
possibility  of  a  reasonable  book.  We  seem  to 
want  but  one,  but  we  want  one.  We  love  to 
associate  with  heroic  persons,  since  our  receptivity 
is  unlimited ;  and,  with  the  great,  our  thoughts 
and  manners  easily  become  great.  We  are  all 
wise  in  capacity,  though  so  few  in  energy.  There- 
needs  but  one  wise  man  in  a  company  and  all  are 
wise,  so  rapid  is  the  contagion. 

Great  men  are  thus  a  collyrium  to  clear  our  eyes 
from  egotism  and  enable  us  to  see  other  people  and 
their  works.  But  there  are  vices  and  follies  inci 
dent  to  whole  populations  and  ages.  Men  resem 
ble  their  contemporaries  even  more  than  their  pro 
genitors.  It  is  observed  in  old  couples,  or  in  per 
sons  who  have  been  housemates  for  a  course  of 
years,  that  they  grow  like,  and  if  they  should  live 


30  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

long  enough  we  should  not  be  able  to  know  them 
apart.  Nature  abhors  these  complaisances  which 
threaten  to  melt  the  world  into  a  lump,  and  has 
tens  to  break  up  such  maudlin  agglutinations.  The 
like  assimilation  goes  on  between  men  of  one  town, 
of  one  sect,  of  one  political  party ;  and  the  ideas  of 
the  time  are  in  the  air,  and  infect  all  who  breathe 
it.  Viewed  from  any  high  point,  this  city  of  New 
York,  yonder  city  of  London,  the  Western  civiliza 
tion,  would  seem  a  bundle  of  insanities.  We  keep 
each  other  in  countenance  and  exasperate  by  emu 
lation  the  frenzy  of  the  time.  The  shield  against 
the  stingings  of  conscience  is  the  universal  practice, 
or  our  contemporaries.  Again,  it  is  very  easy  to 
be  as  wise  and  good  as  your  companions.  We 
learn  of  our  contemporaries  what  they  know,  with 
out  effort,  and  almost  through  the  pores  of  the 
skin.  We  catch  it  by  sympathy,  or  as  a  wife  ar 
rives  at  the  intellectual  and  moral  elevations  of  her 
husband.  But  we  stop  where  they  stop.  Very 
hardly  can  we  take  another  step.  The  great,  or 
such  as  hold  of  nature  and  transcend  fashions  by 
their  fidelity  to  universal  ideas,  are  saviors  from 
these  federal  errors,  and  defend  us  from  our  con 
temporaries.  They  are  the  exceptions  which  we 
want,  where  all  grows  like.  A  foreign  greatness  is 
the  antidote  for  cabalism. 

Thus  we  feed  on  genius,  and  refresh   ourselves 


USES  OF  GREAT  MEN.  31 

from  too  much  conversation  with  our  mates,  and  ex 
ult  in  the  depth  of  nature  in  that  direction  in  which 
he  leads  us.  What  indemnification  is  one  great 
man  for  populations  of  pigmies  !  Every  mother 
wishes  one  son  a  genius,  though  all  the  rest  should 
be  mediocre.  But  a  new  danger  appears  in  the  ex 
cess  of  influence  of  the  great  man.  His  attractions 
warp  us  from  our  place.  We  have  become  under 
lings  and  intellectual  suicides.  Ah  !  yonder  in  the 
horizon  is  our  help  ;  —  other  great  men,  new  quali 
ties,  counterweights  and  checks  on  each  other.  We  • 
cloy  of  the  honey  of  each  peculiar  greatness.  Ev 
ery  hero  becomes  a  bore  at  last.  Perhaps  Voltaire 
was  not  bad-hearted,  yet  he  said  of  the  good  Jesus, 
even,  "  I  pray  you,  let  me  never  hear  that  man's 
name  again."  They  cry  up  the  virtues  of  George 
Washington, —  "Damn  George  Washington !"  is 
the  poor  Jacobin's  whole  speech  and  confutation. 
But  it  is  human  nature's  indispensable  defence. 
The  centripetence  augments  the  ceiitrifugence. 
We  balance  one  man  with  his  opposite,  and  the 
health  of  the  state  depends  on  the  see-saw. 

There  is  however  a  speedy  limit  to  the  use  of  1 
heroes.     Every  genius  is  defended  from  approach  \ 
by  quantities  of  unavailableness.     They  are  very 
attractive,  and  seem  at  a  distance  our  own  :  but  we 
are  hindered  on    all   sides   from   approach.     The 
more  we   aie   drawn,  the   more  we   are   repelled. 


32  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

There  is  something  not  solid  in  the  good  that  is 
done  for  us.  The  best  discovery  the  discoverer 
makes  for  himself.  It  has  something  unreal  for 
his  companion  until  he  too  has  substantiated  it. 
It  seems  as  if  the  Deity  dressed  each  soul  which  he 
sends  into  nature  in  certain  virtues  and  powers  not 
communicable  to  other  men,  and  sending  it  to  per 
form  one  more  turn  through  the  circle  of  beings, 
wrote  "  Not  transferable  "  and  "  Good  for  this  trip 
only"  on  these  garments  of  the  soul.  There  is 
somewhat  deceptive  about  the  intercourse  of  minds. 
The  boundaries  are  invisible,  but  they  are  never 
crossed.  There  is  such  good  will  to  impart,  and 
such  good  will  to  receive,  that  each  threatens  to 
become  the  other  ;  but  the  law  of  individuality  col 
lects  its  secret  strength  :  you  are  you,  and  I  am  I, 
and  so  we  remain. 

For  nature  wishes  every  thing  to  remain  itself  ; 
and  whilst  every  individual  strives  to  grow  and  ex 
clude  and  to  exclude  and  grow,  to  the  extremities 
of  the  universe,  and  to  impose  the  law  of  its  being 
on  every  other  creature,  Nature  steadily  aims  to 
protect  each  against  every  other.  Each  is  self- 
defended.  Nothing  is  more  marked  than  the 
power  by  which  individuals  are  guarded  from  indi 
viduals,  in  a  world  where  every  benefactor  becomes 
so  easily  a  malefactor  only  by  continuation  of  his 
activity  into  places  where  it  is  not  due  ;  where  chil- 


USES  OF  GREAT  MEN.  33 

dren  seem  so  much  at  the  mercy  of  their  foolish 
parents,  and  where  almost  all  men  are  too  social 
and  interfering.  We  rightly  speak  of  the  guar 
dian  angels  of  children.  How  superior  in  their  se- 
.curity  from  infusions  of  evil  persons,  from  vulgar 
ity  and  second  thought  !  They  shed  their  own 
abundant  beauty  on  the  objects  they  behold. 
Therefore  they  are  not  at  the  mercy  of  such  poor 
educators  as  we  adults.  If  we  huff  and  chide  them 
they  soon  come  not  to  mind  it  and  get  a  self-reli 
ance  ;  and  if  we  indulge  them  to  folly,  they  learn 
the  limitation  elsewhere.  , 

We  need  not  fear  excessive  influence.  A  more 
generous  trust  is  permitted.  Serve  the  great. 
Stick  at  no  humiliation.  Grudge  no  office  tliou 
canst  render.  Be  the  limb  of  their  body,  the 
breath  of  their  mouth.  Compromise  thy  egotism. 
Who  cares  for  that,  so  thou  gain  aught  wider  and 
nobler  ?  Never  mind  the  taunt  of  Boswellism  :  the 
devotion  may  easily  be  greater  than  the  wretched 
pride  which  is  guarding  its  own  skirts.  Be  an 
other  :  not  thyself,  but  a  Platonist ;  not  a  soul,  but 
a  Christian ;  not  a  naturalist,  but  a  Cartesian  ;  not 
a  poet,  but  a  Shaksperian.  In  vain,  the  wheels  of 
tendency  will  not  stop,  nor  will  all  the  forces  of  in 
ertia,  fear,  or  of  love  itself  hold  thee  there.  On, 
and  forever  onward !  The  microscope  observes  a 
monad  or  wheel-insect  among  the  infusories  circu- 

VOL.  IV.  3 


34  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

lating  in  water.  Presently  a  dot  appears  on  the 
animal,  which  enlarges  to  a  slit,  and  it  becomes 
two  perfect  animals.  The  ever-proceeding  detach 
ment  appears  not  less  in  all  thought  and  in  society. 
Children  think  they  cannot  live  without  their  par 
ents.  But,  long  before  they  are  aware  of  it,  the 
black  dot  has  appeared  and  the  detachment  taken 
place.  Any  accident  will  now  reveal  to  them  their 
independence. 

But  great  men  :  —  the  word  is  injurious.  Is 
there  caste  ?  is  there  fate  ?  What  becomes  of  the 
promise  to  virtue  ?  The  thoughtful  youth  laments 
the  superfcetation  of  nature.  '  Generous  and  hand 
some,'  he  says,  '  is  your  hero  ;  but  look  at  yonder 
poor  Paddy,  whose  country  is  his  wheelbarrow  ; 
look  at  his  whole  nation  of  Paddies.'  Why  are 
the  masses,  from  the  dawn  of  history  down,  food 
for  knives  and  powder  ?  The  idea  dignifies  a  few 
leaders,  who  have  sentiment,  opinion,  love,  self-de 
votion  ;  and  they  make  war  and  death  sacred  ;  — 
but  what  for  the  wretches  whom  they  hire  and 
kill  ?  The  cheapness  of  man  is  every  day's  trag 
edy.  It  is  as  real  a  loss  that  others  should  be 
low  as  that  we  should  be  low  ;  for  we  must  have 
society. 

Is  it  a  reply  to  these  suggestions  to  say,  Society 
is  a  Pestalozziaii  school :  all  are  teachers  and  pu- 


USES  OF  GREAT  MEN.  35 

pils  in  turn  ?  We  are  equally  served  by  receiving 
and  by  imparting.  Men  who  know  the  same  things 
are  not  long  the  best  company  for  each  other. 
But  bring  to  each  an  intelligent  person  of  another 
experience,  and  it  is  as  if  you  let  off  water  from  a 
lake  by  cutting  a  lower  basin.  It  seems  a  mechan 
ical  advantage,  and  great  benefit  it  is  to  each 
speaker,  as  he  can  now  paint  out  his  thought  to 
himself.  We  pass  very  fast,  in  our  personal 
moods,  from  dignity  to  dependence.  And  if  any 
appear  never  to  assume  the  chair,  but  always  to 
stand  and  serve,  it  is  because  we  do  not  see  the 
company  in  a  sufficiently  long  period  for  the  whole 
rotation  of  parts  to  come  about.  As  to  what  we 
call  the  masses,  and  common  men,  —  there  are  no 
common  men.  All  men  are  at  last  ^>f  a  size  ;  and 
true  art  is  only  possible  on  the  conviction  that 
every  talent  has  its  apotheosis  somewhere.  Fair 
play  and  an  open  field  and  freshest  laurels  to  all 
who  have  won  them  !  But  heaven  reserves  an 
equal  scope  for  every  creature.  Each  is  uneasy 
until  he  has  produced  his  private  ray  unto  the  con 
cave  sphere  and  beheld  his  talent  also  in  its  last 
nobility  and  exaltation. 

The  heroes  of  the  hour  are  relatively  great ;  of 
a  faster  growth  ;  or  they  are  such  in  whom,  at  the 
moment  of  success,  a  quality  is  ripe  which  is  then 
in  request.  Other  days  will  demand  other  quali- 


36  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

ties.  Some  rays  escape  the  common  observer,  and 
want  a  finely  adapted  eye.  Ask  the  great  man  if 
there  be  none  greater.  His  companions  are  ;  and 
not  the  less  great  but  the  more  that  society  cannot 
see  them.  Nature  never  sends  a  great  man  into 
the  planet  without  confiding  the  secret  to  another 
soul. 

One  gracious  fact  emerges  from  these  studies,  — 
that  there  is  true  ascension  in  our  love.  The  rep 
utations  of  the  nineteenth  century  will  one  day  be 
quoted  to  prove  its  barbarism.  The  genius  of  hu 
manity  is  the  real  subject  whose  biography  is  writ 
ten  in  our  annals.  We  must  infer  much,  and  sup 
ply  many  chasms  in  the  record.  The  history  of 
the  universe  is  symptomatic,  and  life  is  mnemoni- 
cal.  No  man,  in  all  the  procession  of  famous  men, 
is  reason  or  illumination  or  that  essence  we  were 
s  looking  for ;  but  is  an  exhibition,  in  some  quarter, 
of  new  possibilities.  Could  we  one  day  complete 
the  immense  figure  which  these  flagrant  points  com 
pose  !  The  study  of  many  individuals  leads  us  to 
an  elemental  region  wherein  the  individual  is  lost, 
or  wherein  all  touch  by  their  summits.  Thought 
and  feeling  that  break  out  there  cannot  be  im 
pounded  by  any  fence  of  personality.  This  is  the 
key  to  the  power  of  the  greatest  men,  —  their  spirit 
diffuses  itself.  A  new  quality  of  mind  travels  by 
night  and  by  day,  in  concentric  circles  from  its  ori- 


*lVx 


v 

OF  GREAT  MEN.          N^      37 

- 


gin,  and  publishes  itself  by  unknown  methods :  the" 
union  of  all  minds  appears  intimate  ;  what  gets  ad 
mission  to  one,  cannot  be  kept  out  of  any  other ;  the 
smallest  acquisition  of  truth  or  of  energy,  in  any 
quarter,  is  so  much  good  to  the  commonwealth  of 
souls.  If  the  disparities  of  talent  and  position  van 
ish  when  the  individuals  are  seen  in  the  duration 
which  is  necessary  to  complete  the  career  of  each, 
even  more  swiftly  the  seeming  injustice  disappears 
when  we  ascend  to  the  central  identity  of  all  the 
individuals,  and  know  that  they  are  made  of  the 
substance  which  ordaineth  and  doeth. 

The  genius  of  humanity  is  the  right  point  of 
view  of  history.  The  qualities  abide;  the  men 
who  exhibit  them  have  now  more,  now  less,  and 
pass  away ;  the  qualities  remain  on  another  brow. 
No  experience  is  more  familiar.  Once  you  saw 
phoenixes :  they  are  gone  ;  the  world  is  not  there 
fore  disenchanted.  The  vessels  on  which  you  read 
sacred  emblems  turn  out  to  be  common  pottery ; 
but  the  sense  of  the  pictures  is  sacred,  and  you 
may  still  read  them  transferred  to  the  walls  of  the 
world.  For  a  time  our  teachers  serve  us  personally, 
as  metres  or  milestones  of  progress.  Once  they 
were  angels  of  knowledge  and  their  figures  touched 
the  sky.  Then  we  drew  near,  saw  their  means, 
culture  and  limits ;  and  they  yielded  their  place 
to  other  geniuses.  Happy,  if  a  few  names  remain 


38  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

so  high  that  we  have  not  been  able  to  read  them 
nearer,  and  age  and  comparison  have  not  robbed 
them  of  a  ray.  But  at  last  we  shall  cease  to  look  in 
men  for  completeness,  and  shall  content  ourselves 
with  their  social  and  delegated  quality.  All  that 
respects  the  individual  is  temporary  and  prospec 
tive,  like  the  individual  himself,  who  is  ascending 
out  of  his  limits  into  a  catholic  existence.  We 
have  never  come  at  the  true  and  best  benefit  of  any 
genius  so  long  as  we  believe  him  an  original  force. 
In  the  moment  when  he  ceases  to  help  us  as  a 
cause,  he  begins  to  help  us  more  as  an  effect.  Then 
he  appears  as  an  exponent  of  a  vaster  mind  and 
will.  The  opaque  self  becomes  transparent  with 
the  light  of  the  First  Cause. 

Yet,  within  the  limits  of  human  education  and 
agency,  we  may  say  great  men  exist  that  there  may 
be  greater  men.  The  destiny  of  organized  nature 
'  is  amelioration,  and  who  can  tell  its  limits  ?  It  is 
for  man  to  tame  the  chaos  ;  on  every  side,  whilst 
he  lives,  to  scatter  the  seeds  of  science  and  of  song, 
that  climate,  corn,  animals,  men,  may  be  milder, 
and  the  germs  of  love  and  benefit  may  be  multi 
plied. 


PLATO;   OR,   THE  PHILOSOPHER. 


II. 

PLATO;  OR,  THE  PHILOSOPHER. 


AMONG  secular  books,  Plato  only  is  entitled  to 
Omar's  fanatical  compliment  to  the  Koran,  when 
he  said,  "  Burn  the  libraries ;  for  their  value  is  in 
this  book."  These  sentences  contain  the  culture 
of  nations ;  these  are  the  corner-stone  of  schools ; 
these  are  the  fountain-head  of  literatures.  A  dis 
cipline  it  is  in  logic,  arithmetic,  taste,  symmetry, 
poetry,  language,  rhetoric,  ontology,  morals  or  prac 
tical  wisdom.  There  was  never  such  range  of  spec 
ulation.  Out  of  Plato  come  all  things  that  are 
still  written  and  debated  among  men  of  thought. 
Great  havoc  makes  he  among  our  originalities.  We 
have  reached  the  mountain  from  which  all  these 
drift  boulders  were  detached.  The  Bible  of  the 
learned  for  twenty-two  hundred  years,  every  brisk 
young  man  who  says  in  succession  fine  things  to 
each  reluctant  generation,  —  Boethius,  Rabelais, 
Erasmus,  Bruno,  Locke,  Rousseau,  Alfieri,  Cole 
ridge, —  is  some  reader  of  Plato,  translating  into 
the  vernacular,  wittily,  his  good  things.  Even  the 


42  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

men  of  grander  proportion  suffer  some  deduction 
from  the  misfortune  (shall  I  say?)  of  coining  after 
this  exhausting  generalizer.  St.  Augustine,  Coper 
nicus,  Newton,  Behmen,  Swedenborg,  Goethe,  are 
likewise  his  debtors  and  must  say  after  him.  For 
it  is  fair  to  credit  the  broadest  generalizer  with  all 
the  particulars  deducible  from  his  thesis. 

Plato  is  philosophy,  and  philosophy,  Plato,  —  at 
once  the  glory  and  the  shame  of  mankind,  since 
neither  Saxon  nor  Roman  have  availed  to  add  any 
idea  to  his  categories.  No  wife,  no  children  had  he, 
and:  the  thinkers  of  all  civilized  nations  are  his  pos 
terity  and  are  tinged  with  his  mind.  How  many 
great  men  Nature  is  incessantly  sending  up  out  of 
night,  to  be  his  men, — Platonists!  the  Alexandri 
ans,  a  constellation  of  genius ;  the  Elizabethans, 
not  less;  Sir  Thomas  More,  Henry  More,  John 
Hales,  John  Smith,  Lord  Bacon,  Jeremy  Taylor, 
Ralph  Cud  worth,  Sydenham,  Thomas  Taylor ;  Mar- 
cilius  Ficinus  and  Picus  Mirandola.  Calvinism  is 
in  his  Phaedo  :  Christianity  is  in  it.  Mahometan- 
ism  draws  all  its  philosophy,  in  its  hand-book  of 
morals,  the  Akhlak  -  y  -  Jalaly,  from  him.  Mysti 
cism  finds  in  Plato  all  its  texts.  This  citizen  of  a 
town  in  Greece  is  no  villager  nor  patriot.  An 
Englishman  reads  and  says,  '  how  English  ! '  a  Ger 
man,  — c  how  Teutonic  !  '  an  Italian,  — c  how  Ro 
man  and  how  Greek ! '  As  they  say  that  Helen 


PLATO;   OR,    THE  PHILOSOPHER.  43 

of  Argos  had  that  universal  beauty  that  every  body 
felt  related  to  her,  so  Plato  seems  to  a  reader  in 
New  England  an  American  genius.  His  broad 
humanity  transcends  all  sectional  lines. 

This  range  of  Plato  instructs  us  what  to  think  of 
the  vexed  question  concerning  his  reputed  works, 
—  what  are  genuine,  what  spurious.  It  is  singu 
lar  that  wherever  we  find  a  man  higher  by  a  whole 
head  than  any  of  his  contemporaries,  it  is  sure  to 
come  into  doubt  what  are  his  real  works.  Thus 
Homer,  Plato,  Raffaelle,  Shakspeare.  For  these 
men  magnetise  their  contemporaries,  so  that  their 
companions  can  do  for  them  what  they  can  never  do 
for  themselves ;  and  the  great  man  does  thus  live  in 
several  bodies,  and  write,  or  paint  or  act,  by  many 
hands ;  and  after  some  time  it  is  not  easy  to  say 
what  is  the  authentic  work  of  the  master  and  what 
is  only  of  his  school. 

Plato,  too,  like  every  great  man,  consumed  his 
own  times.  What  is  a  great  man  but  one  of  great 
affinities,  who  takes  up  into  himself  all  arts,  sci 
ences,  all  knowables,  as  his  food?  He  can  spare 
nothing  ;  he  can  dispose  of  every  thing.  What  is 
not  good  for  virtue,  is  good  for  knowledge.  Hence 
his  contemporaries  tax  him  with  plagiarism.  But 
the  inventor  only  knows  how  to  borrow;  and  so 
ciety  is  glad  to  forget  the  innumerable  laborers 
who  ministered  to  this  architect,  and  reserves  all 


44  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

its  gratitude  for  him.  When  we  are  praising 
Plato,  it  seems  we  are  praising  quotations  from 
Solon  and  Sophron  and  Philolaus.  Be  it  so.  Every 
book  is  a  quotation ;  and  every  house  is  a  quotation 
out  of  all  forests  and  mines  and  stone  quarries ;  and 
every  man  is  a  quotation  from  all  his  ancestors. 
And  this  grasping  inventor  puts  all  nations  under 
contribution. 

Plato  absorbed  the  learning  of  his  times,  —  Phi 
lolaus,  Tima3us,  Heraclitus,  Parmenides,  and  what 
else ;  then  his  master,  Socrates ;  and  finding  him 
self  still  capable  of  a  larger  synthesis,  —  beyond  all 
example  then  or  since,  —  he  travelled  into  Italy, 
to  gain  what  Pythagoras  had  for  him ;  then  into 
Egypt,  and  perhaps  still  farther  East,  to  import  the 
other  element,  which  Europe  wanted,  into  the  Euro 
pean  mind.  This  breadth  entitles  him  to  stand  as 
the  representative  of  philosophy.  He  says,  in  the 
Republic,  "  Such  a  genius  as  philosophers  must  of 
necessity  have,  is  wont  but  seldom  in  all  its  parts 
to  meet  in  one  man,  but  its  different  parts  gener 
ally  spring  up  in  different  persons."  Every  man 
who  would  do  anything  well,  must  come  to  it  from 
a  higher  ground.  A  philosopher  must  be  more  than 
a  philosopher.  Plato  is  clothed  with  the  powers  of 
a  poet,  stands  upon  the  highest  place  of  the  poet, 
and  (though  I  doubt  he  wanted  the  decisive  gift  of 
lyric  expression),  mainly  is  not  a  poet  because  he 
chose  to  use  the  poetic  gift  to  an  ulterior  purpose. 


PLATO;   OR,   THE  PHILOSOPHER.  45 

Great  geniuses  have  the  shortest  biographies. 
Their  cousins  can  tell  you  nothing  about  them. 
They  lived  in  their  writings,  and  so  their  house 
and  street  life  was  trivial  and  commonplace.  If 
you  would  know  their  tastes -and  complexions,  the 
most  admiring  of  their  readers  most  resembles 
them.  Plato  especially  has  no  external  biography. 
If  he  had  lover,  wife,  or  children,  we  hear  nothing 
of  them.  He  ground  them  all  into  paint.  As  a 
good  chimney  burns  its  smoke,  so  a  philosopher 
converts  the  value  of  all  his  fortunes  into  his  in 
tellectual  performances. 

He  was  born  427,  A.  C.,  about  the  time  of  the 
death  of  Pericles ;  was  of  patrician  connection  in 
his  times  and  city,  and  is  said  to  have  had  an  early 
inclination  for  war,  but,  in  his  twentieth  year, 
meeting  with  Socrates,  was  easily  dissuaded  from 
this  pursuit  and  remained  for  ten  years  his  scholar, 
until  the  death  of  Socrates.  He  then  went  to 
Megara,  accepted  the  invitations  of  Dion  and  of 
Dionysius  to  the  court  of  Sicily,  and  went  thither 
three  times,  though  very  capriciously  treated.  He 
travelled  into  Italy ;  then  into  Egypt,  where  he 
stayed  a  long  time ;  some  say  three,  —  some  say 
thirteen  years.  It  is  said  he  went  farther,  into 
Babylonia :  this  is  uncertain.  Eeturning  to  Athens, 
he  gave  lessons  in  the  Academy  to  those  whom  his 
fame  drew  thither ;  and  died,  as  we  have  received 
it,  in  the  act  of  writing,  at  eighty-one  years. 


46  .  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN 

But  the  biography  of  Plato  is  interior.  We 
are  to  account  for  the  supreme  elevation  of  this 
man  in  the  intellectual  history  of  our  race,  —  how 
it  happens  that  in  proportion  to  the  culture  of 
men  they  become  his  scholars  ;  that,  as  our  Jewish 
Bible  has  implanted  itself  in  the  table-talk  and 
household  life  of  every  man  and  woman  in  the 
European  and  American  nations,  so  the  writings  of 
Plato  have  preoccupied  every  school  of  learning, 
every  lover  of  thought,  every  church,  every  poet, 

—  making  it  impossible  to  think,  on  certain  levels, 
except  through  him.     He  stands  between  the  truth 
and  every  man's  mind,  and  has  almost  impressed 
language  and  the  primary  forms  of  thought  with 
his  name  and  seal.     I  am  struck,  in  reading  him, 
with  the  extreme  modernness  of  his  style  and  spirit. 
Here  is  the  germ  of  that  Europe  we  know  so  well, 
in  its  long  history  of  arts  and  arms ;  here  are  all 
its  traits,  already  discernible  in  the  mind  of  Plato, 

—  and  in  none  before  him.     It  has  spread  itself 
since  into  a  hundred  histories,  but  has  added  no 
new  element.      This  perpetual  modernness  is  the 
measure  of  merit  in  every  work  of  art;  since  the 
author  of  it  was  not  misled  by  any  thing  short 
lived  or  local,  but  abode  by  real  and  abiding  traits. 
How  Plato  came  thus  to  be  Europe,  and  philoso 
phy,  and  almost  literature,  is  the  problem  for  us  to 
solve. 


PLATO-,   OR,   THE  PHILOSOPHER.  47 

This  could  not  have  happened  without  a  sound, 
sincere  and  catholic  man,  able  to  honor,  at  the 
same  time,  the  ideal,  or  laws  of  the  mind,  and  fate, 
or  the  order  of  nature.  The  first  period  of  a  na 
tion,  as  of  an  individual,  is  the  period  of  uncon 
scious  strength.  Children  cry,  scream  and  stamp 
with  fury,  unable  to  express  their  desires.  As 
soon  as  they  can  speak  and  tell  their  want  and 
the  reason  of  it,  they  become  gentle.  In  adult  life, 
whilst  the  perceptions  are  obtuse,  men  and  women 
talk  vehemently  and  superlatively,  blunder  and 
quarrel :  their  manners  are  full  of  desperation ; 
their  speech  is  full  of  oaths.  As  soon  as,  with  cul 
ture,  things  have  cleared  up  a  little,  and  they  see 
them  no  longer  in  lumps  and  masses  but  accurately 
distributed,  they  desist  from  that  weak  vehemence 
and  explain  their  meaning  in  detail.  If  the  tongue 
had  not  been  framed  for  articulation,  man  would 
still  be  a  beast  in  the  forest.  The  same  weakness/ 
and  want,  on  a  higher  plane,  occurs  daily  in  the 
education  of  ardent  young  men  and  women.  '  Ah ! 
you  don't  understand  me ;  I  have  never  met  with 
any  one  who  comprehends  me :  '  and  they  sigh  and 
weep,  write  verses  and  walk  alone,  —  fault  of 
power  to  express  their  precise  meaning.  In  a 
month  or  two,  through  the  favor  of  their  good  gen 
ius,  they  meet  some  one  so  related  as  to  assist  their 
volcanic  estate,  and,  good  communication  being 


48  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

once  established,  they  are  thenceforward  good  citi 
zens.     It  is  ever  thus.     The  progress  is  to  accu-    \ 
racy,  to  skill,  to  truth,  from  blind  force. 

There  is  a  moment  in  the  history  of  every  na 
tion,  when,  proceeding  out  of  this  brute  youth,  the 
perceptive  powers  reach  their  ripeness  and  have 
not  yet  become  microscopic :  so  that  man,  at  that 
instant,  extends  across  the  entire  scale,  and,  with 
his  feet  still  planted  on  the  immense  forces  of 
night,  converses  by  his  eyes  and  brain  with  solar 
and  stellar  creation.  That  is  the  moment  of  adult 
health,  the  culmination  of  power. 

Such  is  the  history  of  Europe,  in  all  points ;  and 
such  in  philosophy.  Its  early  records,  almost  per 
ished,  are  of  the  immigrations  from  Asia,  bringing 
with  them  the  dreams  of  barbarians ;  a  confusion 
of  crude  notions  of  morals  and  of  natural  philos 
ophy,  gradually  subsiding  through  the  partial  in 
sight  of  single  teachers. 

Before  Pericles  came  the  Seven  Wise  Masters, 
and  we  have  the  beginnings  of  geometry,  meta 
physics  and  ethics  :  then  the  partialists,  —  deduc 
ing  the  origin  of  things  from  flux  or  water,  or  from 
air,  or  from  fire,  or  from  mind.  All  mix  with 
these  causes  mythologic  pictures.  At  last  comes 
Plato,  the  distributor,  who  needs  no  barbaric  paint, 
or  tattoo,  or  whooping ;  for  he  can  define.  Ho 
leaves  with  Asia  the  vast  and  superlative  ;  he  is 


PLATO;   OR,   THE  PHILOSOPHER.  49 

the  arrival  of  accuracy  and  intelligence.  "  He 
shall  be  as  a  god  to  me,  who  can  rightly  divide 
and  define.  " 

This  defining  is  philosophy.  Philosophy  is  the 
account  which  the  human  mind  gives  to  itself  of 
the  constitution  of  the  world.  Two  cardinal  facts 
lie  forever  at  the  base ;  the  one,  and  the  two.  — 
1.  Unity,  or  Identity ;  and,  2.  Variety.  We  unite 
all  things  by  perceiving  the  law  which  pervades 
them  ;  by  perceiving  the  superficial  differences  and 
the  profound  resemblances.  But  every  mental 
act,  —  this  very  perception  of  identity  or  oneness, 
recognizes  the  difference  of  things.  Oneness  and 
otherness.  It  is  impossible  to  speak  or  to  think 
without  embracing  both. 

The  mind  is  urged  to  ask  for  one  cause  of  many 
effects  ;  then  for  the  cause  of  that ;  and  again  the 
cause,  diving  still  into  the  profound :  self-assured 
that  it  shall  arrive  at  an  absolute  and  sufficient 
one,  —  a  one  that  shall  be  all.  "  In  the  midst  of 
the  sun  is  the  light,  in  the  midst  of  the  light  is 
truth,  and  in  the  midst  of  truth  is  the  imperishable 
being,  "  say  the  Vedas.  All  philosophy,  of  East  / 
and  West,  has  the  same  centripetence.  Urged  by  \ 
an  opposite  necessity,  the  mind  returns  from  the 
one  to  that  which  is  not  one,  but  other  or  many ; 
from  cause  to  effect ;  and  affirms  the  necessary 
existence  of  variety,  the  self-existence  of  both,  as 

VOL.    IV.  4 


50  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

each  is  involved  in  the  other.  These  strictly- 
blended  elements  it  is  the  problem  of  thought  to 
separate  and  to  reconcile.  Their  existence  is  mu 
tually  contradictory  and  exclusive ;  and  each  so 
fast  slides  into  the  other  that  we  can  never  say 
what  is  one,  and  what  it  is  not.  The  Proteus  is  as 
nimble  in  the  highest  as  in  the  lowest  grounds ; 
when  we  contemplate  the  one,  the  true,  the  good,  — 
as  in  the  surfaces  and  extremities  of  matter. 

In  all  nations  there  are  minds  which  incline  to 
dwell  in  the  conception  of  the  fundamental  Unity. 
The  raptures  of  prayer  and  ecstasy  of  devotion  lose 
all  being  in  one  Being.  This  tendency  finds  its 
highest  expression  in  the  religious  writings  of 
the  East,  and  chiefly  in  the  Indian  Scriptures,  in 
the  Vedas,  the  Bhagavat  Geeta,  and  the  Vishnu 
Purana.  Those  writings  contain  little  else  than 
this  idea,  and  they  rise  to  pure  and  sublime  strains 
in  celebrating  it. 

The  Same,  the  Same  :  friend  and  foe  are  of  one 
stuff ;  the  ploughman,  the  plough  and  the  furrow 
are  of  one  stuff ;  and  the  stuff  is  such  and  so  much 
that  the  variations  of  form  are  unimportant.  "  You 
are  fit"  (  says  the  supreme  Krishna  to  a  sage)  "to 
apprehend  that  you  are  not  distinct  from  me.  That 
which  I  am,  thou  art,  and  that  also  is  this  world, 
with  its  gods  and  heroes  and  mankind.  Men  con 
template  distinctions,  because  they  are  stupefied 


PLATO;   OR,   THE  PHILOSOPHER.  51 

with  ignorance.  "  "  The  words  I  and  mine  consti 
tute  ignorance.  What  is  the  great  end  of  all,  you 
shall  now  learn  from  me.  It  is  soul,  —  one  in  all 
bodies,  pervading,  uniform,  perfect,  preeminent 
over  nature,  exempt  from  birth,  growth  and  decay, 
omnipresent,  made  up  of  true  knowledge,  indepen 
dent,  unconnected  with  unrealities,  with  name, 
species  and  the  rest,  in  time  past,  present  and  to 
come.  The  knowledge  that  this  spirit,  which  is 
essentially  one,  is  in  one's  own  and  in  all  other 
bodies,  is  the  wisdom  of  one  who  knows  the  unity 
of  things.  As  one  diffusive  air,  passing  through 
the  perforations  of  a  flute,  is  distinguished  as  the 
notes  of  a  scale,  so  the  nature  of  the  Great_Spirit_ 
is  single,  though  its  forms  be  manifoldj_JLrisiiig 
fronftne  consequences~^F  a.pf«.  When  the  differ 
ence  of  the  investing  form,  as  that  of  god  or  the 
rest,  is  destroyed,  there  is  no  distinction."  "  The 
whole  world  is  but  a  manifestation  of  Vishnu,  who 
is  identical  with  all  things,  and  is  to  be  regarded 
by  the  wise  as  not  differing  from,  but  as  the  same 
as  themselves.  I  neither  am  going  nor  coming; 
nor  is  my  dwelling  in  any  one  place  ;  nor  art  thou, 
thou ;  nor  are  others,  others ;  nor  am  I,  I. "  As  if 
he  had  said,  '  All  is  for  the  soul,  and  the  soul  is 
Vishnu ;  and  animals  and  stars  are  transient  paint 
ings;  and  light  is  whitewash;  and  durations  are 
deceptive  ;  and  form  is  imprisonment ;  and  heaven 


52  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

itself  a  decoy. '  That  which  the  soul  seeks  is  reso 
lution  into  being  above  form,  out  of  Tartarus  and 
out  of  heaven,  —  liberation  from  nature. 

If  speculation  tends  thus  to  a  terrific  unity,  in 
which  all  things  are  absorbed,  action  tends  directly 
backwards  to  diversity.  The  first  is  the  course 
or  gravitation  of  mind;  the  second  is  the  power 
of  nature.  Nature  is  the  manifold.  The  unity 
absorbs,  and  melts  or  reduces.  Nature  opens  and 
creates.  These  two  principles  reappear  and  inter 
penetrate  all  things,  all  thought;  the  one,  the 
many.  One  is  being  ;  the  other,  intellect :  one  is 
necessity ;  the  other,  freedom  :  one,  rest ;  the  other, 
motion  :  one,  power ;  the  other,  distribution :  one, 
strength  ;  the  other,  pleasure  :  one,  consciousness  ; 
the  other,  definition :  one,  genius ;  the  other,  talent : 
one,  earnestness  ;  the  other,  knowledge :  one,  pos 
session  ;  the  other,  trade  :  one,  caste ;  the  other, 
culture :  one,  king ;  the  other,  democracy  :  and,  if 
we  dare  carry  these  generalizations  a  step  higher, 
and  name  the  last  tendency  of  both,  we  might 
say,  that  the  end  of  the  one  is  escape  from  organ 
ization,  —  pure  science  ;  and  the  end  of  the  other 
is  the  highest  instrumentality,  or  use  of  means,  or 
executive  deity. 

Each  student  adheres,  by  temperament  and  by 
habit,  to  the  first  or  to  the  second  of  these  gods  of 
the  mind.  By  religion,  he  tends  to  unity  ;  by  in- 


PLATO;   OR,    THE  PHILOSOPHER.  53 

tellect,  or  by  the  senses,  to  the  many.  A  too 
rapid  unification,  and  an  excessive  appliance  to 
parts  and  particulars,  are  the  twin  dangers  of  spec 
ulation. 

To  this  partiality  the  history  of  nations  corre 
sponded.  The  country  of  unity,  of  immovable  insti 
tutions,  the  seat  of  a  philosophy  delighting  in  ab 
stractions,  of  men  faithful  in  doctrine  and  in  prac 
tice  to  the  idea  of  a  deaf,  unimplorable,  immense 
fate,  is  Asia ;  and  it  realizes  this  faith  in  the  social 
institution  of  caste.  On  the  other  side,  the  genius 
of  Europe  is  active  and  creative  :  it  resists  caste  by 
culture  ;  its  philosophy  was  a  discipline  ;  it  is  a 
land  of  arts,  inventions,  trade,  freedom.  If  the 
East  loved  infinity,  the  West  delighted  in  bounda 
ries. 

European  civility  is  the  triumph  of  talent,  the 
extension  of  system,  the  sharpened  understanding, 
adaptive  skill,  delight  in  forms,  delight  in  manifes 
tation,  in  comprehensible  results.  Pericles,  Athens, 
Greece,  had  been  working  in  this  element  with  the 
joy  of  genius  not  yet  chilled  by  any  foresight  of 
the  detriment  of  an  excess.  They  saw  before  them 
no  sinister  political  economy ;  no  ominous  Malthus  ; 
no  Paris  or  London ;  no  pitiless  subdivision  of 
classes,  — the  doom  of  the  pin-makers,  the  doom  of 
the  weavers,  of  dressers,  of  stockingers,  of  carders, 
of  spinners,  of  colliers;  no  Ireland;  no  Indian 


54  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

caste,  superinduced  by  the  efforts  of  Europe  to 
throw  it  off.  The  understanding  was  in  its  health 
and  prime.  Art  was  in  its  splendid  novelty. 
They  cut  the  Pentelican  marble  as  if  it  were  snow, 
and  their  perfect  works  in  architecture  and  sculp 
ture  seemed  things  of  course,  not  more  difficult 
than  the  completion  of  a  new  ship  at  the  Medford 
yards,  or  new  mills  at  Lowell.  These  things  are 
in  course,  and  may  be  taken  for  granted.  The  Ro 
man  legion,  Byzantine  legislation,  English  trade, 
the  saloons  of  Versailles,  the  cafe's  of  Paris,  the 
steam-mill,  steamboat,  steam-coach,  may  all  be  seen 
in  perspective;  the  town-meeting,  the  ballot-box, 
the  newspaper  and  cheap  press. 

Meantime,  Plato,  in  Egypt  and  in  Eastern  pil 
grimages,  imbibed"  the  idea  of  one  Deity,  in  which 
all  things  are  absorbed.  The  unity  of  Asia  and 
the  detail  of  Europe  ;  the  infinitude  of  the  Asiatic 
soul  and  the  defining,  result-loving,  machine-mak 
ing,  surface-seeking,  opera-going  Europe,  —  Plato 
came  to  join,  and,  by  contact,  to  enhance  the  en 
ergy  of  each.  The  excellence  of  Europe  and  Asia 
are  in  his  brain.  Metaphysics  and  natural  philos- 
7  ophy  expressed  the  genius  of  Europe  ;  he  substructs 
the  religion  of  Asia,  as  the  base. 

In  short,  a  balanced  soul  was  born,  perceptive  of 
the  two  elements.  It  is  as  easy  to  be  great  as  to 
be  small.  The  reason  why  we  do  not  at  once  be- 


PLATO;   OR,    THE  PHILOSOPHER.  55 

lieve  in  admirable  souls  is  because  they  are  not  in 
our  experience.  In  actual  life,  they  are  so  rare  as 
to  be  incredible  ;  but  primarily  there  is  not  only  no 
presumption  against  them,  but  the  strongest  pre 
sumption  in  favor  of  their  appearance.  But 
whether  voices  were  heard  in  the  sky,  or  not ; 
whether  his  mother  or  his  father  dreamed  that  the 
infant  man-child  was  the  son  of  Apollo  ;  whether 
a  swarm  of  bees  settled  on  his  lips,  or  not ;  —  a 
man  who  could  see  two  sides  of  a  thing  was  born.i 
The  wonderful  synthesis  so  familiar  in  nature  ;  the 
upper  and  the  under  side  of  the  medal  of  Jove  ; 
the  union  of  impossibilities,  which  reappears  in 
every  object ;  its  real  and  its  ideal  power,  —  was 
now  also  transferred  entire  to  the  consciousness  of 
a  man. 

The  balanced  soul  came.  If  he  loved  abstract 
truth,  he  saved  himself  by  propounding  the  most 
popular  of  all  principles,  the  absolute  good,  which 
rules  rulers,  and  judges  the  judge.  If  he  made 
transcendental  distinctions,  he  fortified  himself  by 
drawing  all  his  illustrations  from,  sources  disdained 
by  orators  and  polite  conversers  ;  from  mares  and 
puppies ;  from  pitchers  and  soup-ladles  ;  from  cooks 
and  criers;  the  shops  of  potters,  horse-doctors, 
butchers  and  fishmongers.  He  cannot  forgive  nr- 
himself  a  partiality,  but  is  resolved  that  the  two 
poles  of  thought  shall  appear  in  his  statement. 


56  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

His  argument  and  his  sentence  are  self-poised  and 
spherical.  The  two  poles  appear;  yes,  and  be 
come  two  hands,  to  grasp  and  appropriate  their 
own. 

Every  great  artist  has  been  such  by  synthesis. 
Our  strength  is  transitional,  alternating ;  or,  shall 
I  say,  a  thread  of  two  strands.  The  sea-shore,  sea 
seen  from  shore,  shore  seen  from  sea;  the  taste  of 
two  metals  in  contact ;  and  our  enlarged  powers  at 
the  approach  and  at  the  departure  of  a  friend ;  the 
experience  of  poetic  creativeness,  which  is  not 
found  in  staying  at  home,  nor  yet  in  travelling,  but 
in  transitions  from  one  to  the  other,  which  must 
therefore  be  adroitly  managed  to  present  as  much 
transitional  surface  as  possible ;  this  command  of 
two  elements  must  explain  the  power  and  the 
charm  of  Plato.  Art  expresses  the  one  or  the 
same  by  the  different.  Thought  seeks  to  know 
unity  in  unity  ;  poetry  to  show  it  by  variety  ;  that 
is,  always  by  an  object  or  symbol.  Plato  keeps  the 
two  vases,  one  of  sether  and  one  of  pigment,  at  his 
side,  and  invariably  uses  both.  Things  added  to 
things,  as  statistics,  civil  history,  are  inventories. 
Tilings  used  as  language  are  inexhaustibly  attrac 
tive.  Plato  turns  incessantly  the  obverse  and  the 
reverse  of  the  medal  of  Jove. 

To  take  an  example :  —  The  physical  philoso 
phers  had  sketched  each  his  theory  of  the  world ; 


PLATO;   OR,    TEE  PHILOSOPHER.  57 

the  theory  of  atoms,  of  fire,  of  flux,  of  spirit ;  the 
ories  mechanical  and  chemical  in  their  genius. 
Plato,  a  master  of  mathematics,  studious  of  all  nat 
ural  laws  and  causes,  feels  these,  as  second  causes, 
to  be  no  theories  of  the  world  but  bare  inventories 
and  lists.  To  the  study  of  nature  he  therefore 
prefixes  the  dogma,  —  "  Let  us  declare  the  cause 
which  led  the  Supreme  Ordainer  to  produce  and 
compose  the  universe.  He  was  good ;  and  he  who 
is  good  has  no  kind  of  envy.  Exempt  from  envy, 
he  wished  that  all  things  should  be  as  much  as 
possible  like  himself.  Whosoever,  taught  by  wise 
men,  shall  admit  this  as  the  prime  cause  of  the 
origin  and  foundation  of  the  world,  will  be  in  the 
truth."  "  All  things  are  for  the  sake  of  the  good, 
and  it  is  the  cause  of  every  thing  beautiful."  This 
dogma  animates  and  impersonates  his  philosophy. 

The  synthesis  which  makes  the  character  of  his 
mind  appears  in  all  his  talents.  Where  there  is 
great  compass  of  wit,  we  usually  find  excellencies 
that  combine  easily  in  the  living  man,  but  in  de 
scription  appear  incompatible.  The  mind  of  Plato 
is  not  to  be  exhibited  by  a  Chinese  catalogue,  but 
is  to  be  apprehended  by  an  original  mind  in  the 
exercise  of  its  original  power.  In  him  the  freest 
abandonment  is  united  with  the  precision  of  a 
geometer.  His  daring  imagination  gives  him  the 
more  solid  grasp  of  facts ;  as  the  birds  of  highest 


58  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

flight  have  the  strongest  alar  bones.  His  patrician 
polish,  his  intrinsic  elegance,  edged  by  an  irony 
so  subtle  that  it  stings  and  paralyses,  adorn  the 
soundest  health  and  strength  of  frame.  According 
to  the  old  sentence,  "  If  Jove  should  descend  to 
the  earth,  he  would  speak  in  the  style  of  Plato." 

With  this  palatial  air  there  is,  for  the  direct 
aim  of  several  of  his  works  and  running  through 
the  tenor  of  them  all,  a  certain  earnestness,  which 
mounts,  in  the  Republic  and  in  the  Plisedo,  to 
piety.  He  has  been  charged  with  feigning  sickness 
at  the  time  of  the  death  of  Socrates.  But  the  anec 
dotes  that  have  come  down  from  the  times  attest 
his  manly  interference  before  the  people  in  his 
master's  behalf,  since  even  the  savage  cry  of  the 
assembly  to  Plato  is  preserved;  and  the  indigna 
tion  towards  popular  government,  in  many  of  his 
pieces,  expresses  a  personal  exasperation.  He  has 
a  probity,  a  native  reverence  for  justice  and  honor, 
and  a  humanity  which  makes  him  tender  for  the 
superstitions  of  the  people.  Add  to  this,  he  be 
lieves  that  poetry,  prophecy  and  the  high  insight 
are  from  a  wisdom  of  which  man  is  not  master ; 
that  the  gods  never  philosophize,  but  by  a  celestial 
mania  these  miracles  are  accomplished.  Horsed 
on  these  winged  steeds,  he  sweeps  the  dim  regions, 
visits  worlds  which  flesh  cannot  enter ;  he  saw  the 
souls  in  pain,  he  hears  the  doom  of  the  judge,  he 


PLATO;   OR,   THE  PHILOSOPHER.  59 

beholds  the  penal  metempsychosis,  the  Fates,  with 
the  rock  and  shears,  and  hears  the  intoxicating 
hum  of  their  spindle. 

But  his  circumspection  never  forsook  him.  One 
would  say  he  had  read  the  inscription  on  the  gates 
of  Busyrane,  —  "  Be  bold ;  "  and  on  the  second 
gate,  —  "Be  bold,  be  bold,  and  evermore  be  bold;  " 
and  then  again  had  paused  well  at  the  third  gate, 
— "  Be  not  too  bold."  His  strength  is  like  the 
momentum  of  a  falling  planet,  and  his  discretion 
the  return  of  its  due  and  perfect  curve,  —  so  excel 
lent  is  his  Greek  love  of  boundary  and  his  skill 
in  definition.  In  reading  logarithms  one  is  not 
more  secure  than  in  following  Plato  in  his  flights. 
Nothing  can  be  colder  than  his  head,  when  the 
lightnings  of  his  imagination  are  playing  in  the 
sky.  He  has  finished  his  thinking  before  he 
brings  it  to  the  reader,  and  he  abounds  in  the  sur 
prises  of  a  literary  master.  He  has  that  opulence 
which  furnishes,  at  every  turn,  the  precise  weapon 
he  needs.  As  the  rich  man  wears  no  more  gar 
ments,  drives  no  more  horses,  sits  in  no  more 
chambers  than  the  poor,  —  but  has  that  one  dress, 
or  equipage.,  or  instrument,  which  is  fit  for  the 
hour  and  the  need ;  so  Plato,  in  his  plenty,  is  never 
restricted,  but  has  the  fit  word.  There  is  indeed 
no  weapon  in  all  the  armory  of  wit  which  he  did 
not  possess  and  use,  —  epic,  analysis,  mania,  intui- 


60  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

tion,  music,  satire  and  irony,  down  to  the  custom 
ary  and  polite.  His  illustrations  are  poetry  and  his 
jests  illustrations.  Socrates'  profession  of  obstetric 
art  is  good  philosophy ;  and  his  finding  that  word 
"  cookery,"  and  "  adulatory  art,"  for  rhetoric,  in 
the  Gorgias,  does  us  a  substantial  service  still. 
No  orator  can  measure  in  effect  with  him  who  can 
give  good  nicknames. 

What  moderation  and  understatement  and  check 
ing  his  thunder  in  mid  volley !  He  has  good-na 
turedly  furnished  the  courtier  and  citizen  with  all 
that  can  be  said  against  the  schools.  "  For  philo 
sophy  is  an  elegant  thing,  if  any  one  modestly  med 
dles  with  it;  but  if  he  is  conversant  with  it  more 
than  is  becoming,  it  corrupts  the  man."  He  could 
well  afford  to  be  generous,  —  he,  who  from  the 
sunlike  centrality  and  reach  of  his  vision,  had  a 
faith  without  cloud.  Such  as  his  perception,  was 
his  speech  :  he  plays  with  the  doubt  and  makes  the 
most  of  it :  he  paints  and  quibbles ;  and  by  and  by 
comes  a  sentence  that  moves  the  sea  and  land. 
The  admirable  earnest  comes  not  only  at  intervals, 
in  the  perfect  yes  and  no  of  the  dialogue,  but  in 
bursts  of  light.  "I,  therefore,  Callicles,  am  per 
suaded  by  these  accounts,  and  consider  how  I  may 
exhibit  my  soul  before  the  judge  in  a  healthy  con 
dition.  Wherefore,  disregarding  the  honors  that 
most  men  value,  and  looking  to  the  truth,  I  shall 


PLATO;   OR,    THE  PHILOSOPHER.  61 

endeavor  in  reality  to  live  as  virtuously  as  I  can ; 
and  when  I  die,  to  die  so.  And  I  invite  all  other 
men,  to  the  utmost  of  my  power ;  and  you  too  I 
in  turn  invite  to  this  contest,  which,  I  affirm, 
surpasses  all  contests  here." 

He  is  a  great  average  man  ;  one  who,  to  the  best 
thinking,  adds  a  proportion  and  equality  in  his  fac 
ulties,  so  that  men  see  in  him  their  own  dreams  and 
glimpses  made  available  and  made  to  pass  for  what 
they  are.  A  great  common-sense  is  his  warrant 
and  qualification  to  be  the  world's  interpreter.  He 
has  reason,  as  all  the  philosophic  and  poetic  class 
have  :  but  he  has  also  what  they  have  not,  —  this 
strong-  solving  sense  to  reconcile  his  poetry  with  the 
appearances  of  the  world,  and  build  a  bridge  from 
the  streets  of  cities  to  the  Atlantis.  He  omits  never 
this  graduation,  but  slopes  his  thought,  however 
picturesque  the  precipice  011  one  side,  to  an  access 
from  the  plain.  He  never  writes  in  ecstacy,  or 
catches  us  up  into  poetic  raptures. 

Plato  apprehended  the  cardinal  facts.  He  could 
prostrate  himself  on  the  earth  and  cover  his  eyes 
whilst  he  adored  that  which  cannot  be  numbered, 
or  gauged,  or  known,  or  named:  that  of  which 
every  thing  can  be  affirmed  and  denied:  that 
"which  is  entity  and  nonentity."  He  called  it 
super-essential.  He  even  stood  ready,  as  in  the 


62  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

Parmenides,  to  demonstrate  that  it  was  so, —  that 
this  Being  exceeded  the  limits  of  intellect.  No 
man  ever  more  fully  acknowledged  the  Ineffable. 
Having  paid  his  homage,  as  for  the  human  race, 
to  the  Illimitable,  he  then  stood  erect,  and  for  the 
human  race  affirmed,  'And  yet  things  are  know- 
able  ! '  -  —  that  is,  the  Asia  in  his  mind  was  first 
heartily  honored,  —  the  ocean  of  love  and  power, 
before  form,  before  will,  before  knowiedge,  the 
Same,  the  Good,  the  One ;  and  now,  refreshed  and 
empowered  by  this  worship,  the  instinct  of  Eu 
rope,  namely,  culture,  returns  ;  and  he  cries,  '  Yet 
things  are  knowable ! '  They  are  knowable,  be 
cause  being  from  one,  things  correspond.  There 
is  a  scale ;  and  the  correspondence  of  heaven  to 
earth,  of  matter  to  mind,  of  the  part  to  the  whole, 
is  our  guide.  As  there  is  a  science  of  stars, 
called  astronomy;  a  science  of  quantities,  called 
mathematics;  a  science  of  qualities,  called  chem- 
,  istry ;  so  there  is  a  science  of  sciences,  —  I  call 
lit  Dialectic,  —  which  is  the  Intellect  discriminat- 
,  ing  the  false  and  the  true.  It  rests  on  the  obser- 
\  vation  of  identity  and  diversity ;  for  to  judge  is 
to  unite  to  an  object  the  notion  which  belongs  to 
it.  The  sciences,  even  the  best, —  mathematics  and 
astronomy,  —  are  like  sportsmen,  who  seize  what 
ever  prey  offers,  even  without  being  able  to  make 
any  use  of  it.  Dialectic  must  teach  the  use  of 


PLATO;  OR,    THE  PHILOSOPHER.  63 

them.  "  This  is  of  that  rank  that  no  intellectual 
man  will  enter  on  any  study  for  its  own  sake,  but 
only  with  a  view  to  advance  himself  in  that  one 
sole  science  which  embraces  all." 

"  The  essence  or  peculiarity  of  man  is  to  com 
prehend  a  whole;  or  that  which  in  the  diversity 
of  sensations  can  be  comprised  under  a  rational 
unity."  "  The  soul  which  has  never  perceived 
the  truth,  cannot  pass  into  the  human  form."  I 
announce  to  men  the  Intellect.  I  announce  the 
good  of  being  interpenetrated  by  the  mind  that 
made  nature :  this  benefit,  namely,  that  it  can 
understand  nature,  which  it  made  and  maketh. 
Nature  is  good,  but  intellect  is  better  :  as  the  law 
giver  is  before  the  law-receiver.  I  give  you  joy, 
O  sons  of  men  !  that  truth  is  altogether  whole 
some;  that  we  have  hope  to  search  out  what 
might  be  the  very  self  of  everything.  The  mis 
ery  of  man  is  to  be  baulked  of  the  sight  of  essence 
and  to  be  stuffed  with  conjectures  ;  but  the  su 
preme  good  is  reality ;  the  supreme  beauty  is 
reality;  and  all  virtue  and  all  felicity  depend  on 
this  science  of  the  real :  for  courage  is  nothing 
else  than  knowledge ;  the  fairest  fortune  that  can 
befall  man  is  to  be  guided  by  his  daemon  to  that 
which  is  truly  his  own.  This  also  is  the  essence 
of  justice,  —  to  attend  every  one  his  own :  nay, 
the  notion  of  virtue  is  not  to  be  arrived  at  except 


64  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

through  direct  contemplation  of  the  divine  essence. 
Courage  then  !  for  "  the  persuasion  that  we'  must 
search  that  which  we  do  not  know,  will  render 
us,  beyond  comparison,  better,  braver  and  more 
industrious  than  if  we  thought  it  impossible  to 
discover  what  we  do  not  know,  and  useless  to 
search  for  it."  He  secures  a  position  not  to  be 
commanded,  by  his  passion  for  reality;  valuing 
philosophy  only  as  it  is  the  pleasure  of  conversing 
with  real  being. 

Thus,  full  of  the  genius  of  Europe,  he  said,  Cul 
ture.  He  saw  the  institutions  of  Sparta  and  recog 
nized,  more  genially  one  would  say  than  any  since, 
the  hope  of  education.  He  delighted  in  every  ac 
complishment,  in  every  graceful  and  useful  and 
truthful  performance ;  above  all  in  the  splendors 
of  genius  and  intellectual  achievement.  "  The 
whole  of  life,  O  Socrates,"  said  Glauco,  "  is,  with 
the  wise,  the  measure  of  hearing  such  discourses  as 
these."  What  a  price  he  sets  on  the  feats  of  tal 
ent,  on  the  powers  of  Pericles,  of  Isocrates,  of  Par- 
menides  !  What  price  above  price  011  the  talents 
themselves !  He  called  the  several  faculties,  gods, 
in  his  beautiful  personation.  What  value  he  gives 
to  the  art  of  gymnastic  in  education  ;  what  to  ge 
ometry;  what  to  music;  what  to  astronomy,  whose 
appeasing  and  medicinal  power  he  celebrates  !  In 
the  Tiinseus  he  indicates  the  highest  employment 


PLATO;   OR,   THE  PHILOSOPHER.  65 

of  the  eyes.  "  By  us  it  is  asserted  that  God  in 
vented  and  bestowed  sight  on  us  for  this  purpose, 
—  that  on  surveying  the  circles  of  intelligence  in 
the  heavens,  we  might  properly  employ  those  of  our 
own  minds,  which,  though  disturbed  when  com 
pared  with  the  others  that  are  uniform,  are  still 
allied  to  their  circulations;  and  that  having  thus 
learned,  and  being  naturally  possessed  of  a  correct 
reasoning  faculty,  we  might,  by  imitating  the  uni 
form  revolutions  of  divinity,  set  right  our  own  wan 
derings  and  blunders."  And  in  the  Republic,  — 
"  By  each  of  these  disciplines  a  certain  organ  of 
the  soul  is  both  purified  and  reanimated  which  is 
blinded  and  buried  by  studies  of  another  kind  ;  an 
organ  better  worth  saving  than  ten  thousand  eyes, 
since  truth  is  perceived  by  this  alone." 

He  said,  Culture  ;  but  he  first  admitted  its  basis, 
and  gave  immeasurably  the  first  place  to  advan 
tages  of  nature.  His  patrician  tastes  laid  stress  on 
the  distinctions  of  birth.  In.  the  doctrine  of  the 
organic  character  and  disposition  is  the  origin  of 
caste.  "  Such  as  were  fit  to  govern,  into  their  com 
position  the  informing  Deity  mingled  gold ;  into 
the  military,  silver ;  iron  and  brass  for  husbandmen 
and  artificers."  The  East  confirms  itself,  in  all 
ages,  in  this  faith.  The  Koran  is  explicit  on  this 
point  of  caste.  "  Men  have  their  metal,  as  of  gold 
and  silver.  Those  of  you  who  were  the  worthy 

VOL.  IV.  5 


66  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

ones  in  the  state  of  ignorance,  will  be  the  worthy 
ones  in  the  state  of  faith,  as  soon  as  you  embrace 
it."  Plato  was  not  less  firm.  "  Of  the  five  orders 
of  things,  only  four  can  be  taught  to  the  generality 
of  men."  In  the  Republic  he  insists  011  the  tem 
peraments  of  the  youth,  as  first  of  the  first. 

A  happier  example  of  the  stress  laid  on  nature 
is  in  the  dialogue  with  the  young  Theages,  who 
wishes  to  receive  lessons  from  Socrates.  Socrates 
declares  that  if  some  have  grown  wise  by  asso 
ciating  with  him,  no  thanks  are  due  to  him ;  but, 
simply,  whilst  they  were  with  him  they  grew  wise, 
not  because  of  him ;  he  pretends  not  to  know  the 
way  of  it.  "  It  is  adverse  to  many,  nor  can  those 
be  benefited  by  associating  with  me  whom  the  Dae 
mon  opposes  ;  so  that  it  is  not  possible  for  me  to 
live  with  these.  With  many  however  he  does  not 
prevent  me  from  conversing,  who  yet  are  not  at  all 
benefited  by  associating  with  me.  Such,  O  The 
ages,  is  the  association  with  me  ;  for,  if  it  pleases . 
the  God,  you  will  make  great  and  rapid  profi 
ciency  :  you  will  not,  if  he  does  not  please.  Judge 
whether  it  is  not  safer  to  be  instructed  by  some 
one  of  those  who  have  power  over  the  benefit  which 
they  impart  to  men,  than  by  me,  who  benefit  or  not, 
just  as  it  may  happen."  As  if  he  had  said,  'I  have 
no  system.  I  cannot  be  answerable  for  you.  You 
will  be  what  you  must.  If  there  is  love  between 


PLATO-,   OR,   THE  PHILOSOPHER.  67 

us,  inconceivably  delicious  and  profitable  will  our 
intercourse  be  ;  if  not,  your  time  is  lost  and  you 
will  only  annoy  me.  I  shall  seem  to  you  stupid, 
and  the  reputation  I  have,  false.  Quite  above  us, 
beyond  the  will  of  you  or  me,  is  this  secret  affinity 
or  repulsion  laid.  All  my  good  is  magnetic,  and 
I  educate,  not  by  lessons,  but  by  going  about  my 
business.' 

He  said,  Cult  are;  he  said,  Nature;  and  he  failed 
not  to  add,  '  There  is  also  the  divine.'  There  is 
no  thought  in  any  mind  but  it  quickly  tends  to 
convert  itself  into  a  power  and  organizes  a  huge 
instrumentality  of  means.  Plato,  lover  of  limits, 
loved  the  illimitable,  saw  the  enlargement  and  no 
bility  which  come  from  truth  itself  and  good  itself, 
and  attempted  as  if  on  the  part  of  the  human  in 
tellect,  once  for  all  to  do  it  adequate  homage,  — 
homage  fit  for  the  immense  soul  to  receive,  and  yet 
homage  becoming  the  intellect  to  render.  He  said 
then  '  Our  faculties  run  out  into  infinity,  and  re 
turn  to  us  thence.  We  can  define  but  a  little  way ; 
but  here  is  a  fact  which  will  not  be  skipped,  and 
which  to  shut  our  eyes  upon  is  suicide.  All  things 
are  in  a  scale ;  and,  begin  where  we  will,  ascend 
and  ascend.  All  things  are  symbolical ;  and  what 
we  call  results  are  beginnings.' 

A  key  to  the  method  and  completeness  of  Plato 
is  his  twice  bisected  line.  After  he  has  illustrated 


68  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

the  relation  between  the  absolute  good  and  true 
and  the  forms  of  the  intelligible  world,  he  says :  — 
"  Let  there  be  a  line  cut  in  two  unequal  parts. 
Cut  again  each  of  these  two  main  parts,  —  one 
representing  the  visible,  the  other  the  intelligible 
world,  —  and  let  these  two  new  sections  represent 
the  bright  part  and  the  dark  part  of  each  of  these 
worlds.  You  will  have,  for  one  of  the  sections  of 
the  visible  world,  images,  that  is,  both  shadows  and 
reflections  ;  —  for  the  other  section,  the  objects  of 
these  images,  that  is,  plants,  animals,  and  the  works 
of  art  and  nature.  Then  divide  the  intelligible 
world  in  like  manner;  the  one  section  will  be  of 
opinions  and  hypotheses,  and  the  other  section  of 
truths."  To  these  four  sections,  the  four  opera 
tions  of  the  soul  correspond,  —  conjecture,  faith, 
understanding,  reason.  As  every  pool  reflects  the 
image  of  the  sun,  so  every  thought  and  thing  re 
stores  us  an  image  and  creature  of  the  supreme 
Good.  The  universe  is  perforated  by  a  million 
channels  for  his  activity.  All  things  mount  and 
mount. 

All  his  thought  has  this  ascension  ;  in  Phsedrus, 
teaching  that  beauty  is  the  most  lovely  of  all 
things,  exciting  hilarity  and  shedding  desire  and 
confidence  through  the  universe  wherever  it  en 
ters,  and  it  enters  in  some  degree  into  all  things : 
—  but  that  there  is  another,  which  is  as  much 


•' 


PLATO;   OR,    THE  PHILOSOPHER^    '£$ 

more  beautiful  than  beauty  as  beauty  is 
chaos  ;  namely, ^wisdom,  which  our  wonderful 
of  sight  cannot  reach  unto,  but  which,  could  it  be  ' 
seen,  would  ravish  us  with  its  perfect  reality.  He 
has  the  same  regard  to  it  as  the  source  of  excel 
lence  in  works  of  art.  When  an  artificer,  he  says, 
in  the  fabrication  of  any  work,  looks  to  that  which 
always  subsists  according  to  the  same ;  and,  em 
ploying  a  model  of  this  kind,  expresses  its  idea  and 
power  in  his  work,  —  it  must  follow  that  his  pro 
duction  should  be  beautiful.  But  when  he  beholds 
that  which  is  born  and  dies,  it  will  be  far  from 
beautiful. 

Thus  ever  :  the  Banquet  is  a  teaching  in  the 
same  spirit,  familiar  now  to  all  the  poetry  and  to 
all  the  sermons  of  the  world,  that  the  love  of  the 
sexes  is  initial,  and  symbolizes  at  a  distance  the 
passion  of  the  soul  for  that  immense  lake  of  beauty 
it  exists  to  seek.  This  faith  in  the  Divinity  is 
never  out  of  mind,  and  constitutes  the  ground  of 
all  his  dogmas.  Body  cannot  teach  wisdom  ;  — 
God  only.  In  the  same  mind  he  constantly  affirms 
that  virtue  cannot  be  taught ;  that  it  is  not  a  sci 
ence,  but  an  inspiration  •,  that  the  greatest  goods 
are  produced  to  us  through  mania  and  are  as 
signed  to  us  by  a  divine  gift. 

This  leads  me  to  that  central  figure  which  he 
has  established  in  his  Academy  as  the  organ 


70  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

through  which  every  considered  opinion  shall  be 
announced,  and  whose  biography  he  has  likewise  so 
labored  that  the  historic  facts  are  lost  in  the  light 
of  Plato's  mind.  Socrates  and  Plato  are  the  dou 
ble  star  which  the  most  powerful  instruments  will 
not  entirely  separate.  Socrates  again,  in  his  traits 
and  genius,  is  the  best  example  of  that  synthesis 
which  constitutes  Plato's  extraordinary  power. 
Socrates,  a  man  of  humble  stem,  but  honest 
enough  ;  of  the  commonest  history ;  of  a  personal 
homeliness  so  remarkable  as  to  be  a  cause  of  wit 
in  others  :  —  the  rather  that  his  broad  good  nature 
and  exquisite  taste  for  a  joke  invited  the  sally, 
which  was  sure  to  be  paid.  The  players  person 
ated  him  on  the  stage ;  the  potters  copied  his  ugly 
face  011  their  stone  jugs.  He  was  a  cool  fellow, 
adding  to  his  humor  a  perfect  temper  and  a  knowl 
edge  of  his  man,  be  he  who  he  might  whom  he 
talked  with,  which  laid  the  companion  open  to  cer 
tain  defeat  in  any  debate,  —  and  in  debate  he  im 
moderately  delighted.  The  young  men  are  prodig 
iously  fond  of  him  and  invite  him  to  their  feasts, 
whither  he  goes  for  conversation.  He  can  drink, 
too ;  has  the  strongest  head  in  Athens ;  and  after 
leaving  the  whole  party  under  the  table,  goes  away 
as  if  nothing  had  happened,  to  begin  new  dialogues 
with  somebody  that  is  sober.  In  -short,  he  was 
what  our  country-people  call  an  old  one. 


PLATO;   OR,   THE  PHILOSOPHER.  71 

He  affected  a  good  many  citizen-like  tastes,  was 
monstrously  fond  of  Athens,  hated  trees,  never 
willingly  went  beyond  the  walls,  knew  the  old 
characters,  valued  the  bores  and  philistines,  thought 
every  thing  in  Athens  a  little  better  than  anything 
in  any  other  place.  He  was  plain  as  a  Quaker  in 
habit  and  speech,  affected  low  phrases,  and  illustra 
tions  from  cocks  and  quails,  soup-pans  and  syca 
more-spoons,  grooms  and  farriers,  and  unnameable 
offices,  —  especially  if  he  talked  with  any  superfine 
person.  He  had  a  Franklin-like  wisdom.  Thus 
he  showed  one  who  was  afraid  to  go  on  foot  to 
Olympia,  that  it  was  no  more  than  his  daily  walk 
within  doors,  if  continuously  extended,  would  easily 
reach. 

Plain  old  uncle  as  he  was,  with  his  great  ears, 
an  immense  talker,  —  the  rumor  ran  that  on  one 
or  two  occasions,  in  the  war  with  Bosotia,  he  had 
shown  a  determination  which  had  covered  the  re 
treat  of  a  troop  ;  and  there  was  some  story  that 
under  cover  of  folly,  he  had,  in  the  city  govern 
ment,  when  one  day  he  chanced  to  hold  a  seat 
there,  evinced  a  courage  in  opposing  singly  the 
popular  voice,  which  had  well-nigh  ruined  him. 
He  is  very  poor ;  but  then  he  is  hardy  as  a  soldier, 
and  can  live  on  a  few  olives  ;  usually,  in  the  strict 
est  sense,  on  'bread  and  water,  except  when  enter 
tained  by  his  friends.  His  necessary  expenses 


72  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

were  exceedingly  small,  and  no  one  could  live  as  lie 
did.  He  wore  no  under  garment ;  his  upper  gar 
ment  was  the  same  for  summer  and  winter,  and  he 
went  barefooted ;  and  it  is  said  that  to  procure  the 
pleasure,  which  he  loves,  of  talking  at  his  ease  all 
day  with  the  most  elegant  and  cultivated  young 
men,  he  will  now  and  then  return  to  his  shop  and 
carve  statues,  good  or  bad,  for  sale.  However  that 
be,  it  is  certain  that  he  had  grown  to  delight  in 
nothing  else  than  this  conversation ;  and  that,  un 
der  his  hypocritical  pretence  of  knowing  nothing, 
he  attacks  and  brings  down  all  the  fine  speakers, 
all  the  fine  philosophers  of  Athens,  whether  natives 
or  strangers  from  Asia  Minor  and  the  islands. 
Nobody  can  refuse  to  talk  with  him,  he  is  so  hon 
est  and  really  curious  to  know ;  a  man  who  was 
willingly  confuted  if  he  did  not  speak  the  truth, 
and  who  willingly  confuted  others  asserting  what 
was  false ;  and  not  less  pleased  when  confuted  than 
when  confuting  ;  for  he  thought  not  any  evil  hap 
pened  to  men  of  such  a  magnitude  as  false  opinion 
respecting  the  just  and  unjust.  A  pitiless  dis 
putant,  who  knows  nothing,  but  the  bounds  of 
whose  conquering  intelligence  no  man  had  ever 
reached  ;  whose  temper  was  imperturbable  ;  whose 
dreadful  logic  was  always  leisurely  and  sportive ; 
so  careless  and  ignorant  as  to  disarm  the  wariest 
and  draw  them,  in  the  pleasantest  manner,  into 


PLATO;   OR,    THE  PHILOSOPHER.  73 

horrible  doubts  and  confusion.  But  he  always 
knew  the  way  out ;  knew  it,  yet  would  not  tell  it. 
No  escape ;  he  drives  them  to  terrible  choices 
by  his  dilemmas,  and  tosses  the  Hippiases  and 
Gorgiases  with  their  grand  reputations,  as  a  boy 
tosses  his  balls.  The  tyrannous  realist! — Meno 
has  discoursed  a  thousand  times,  at  length,  on  vir 
tue,  before  many  companies,  and  very  well,  as  it  ap 
peared  to  him ;  but  at  this  moment  he  cannot  even 
tell  what  it  is,  —  this  cramp-fish  of  a  Socrates  has 
so  bewitched  him. 

This  hard-headed  humorist,  whose  strange  con 
ceits,  drollery  and  bonhommie  diverted  the  young 
patricians,  whilst  the  rumor  of  his  sayings  and 
quibbles  gets  abroad  every  day,  —  turns  out,  in  the 
sequel,  to  have  a  probity  as  invincible  as  his  logic, 
and  to  be  either  insane,  or  at  least,  under  cover 
of  this  play,  enthusiastic  in  his  religion.  When 
accused  before  the  judges  of  subverting  the  popu 
lar  creed,  he  affirms  the  immortality  of  the  soul, 
the  future  reward  and  punishment ;  and  refusing 
to  recant,  in  a  caprice  of  the  popular  government 
was  condemned  to  die,  and  sent  to  the  prison. 
Socrates  entered  the  prison  and  took  away  all 
ignominy  from  the  place,  which  could  not  be  a 
prison  whilst  he  was  there.  Crito  bribed  the 
jailer ;  but  Socrates  would  not  go  out  by  treach 
ery.  "  Whatever  inconvenience  ensue,  nothing  is 


74  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

to  be  preferred  before  justice.  These  things  I 
hear  like  pipes  and  drums,  whose  sound  makes  me 
deaf  to  every  thing  you  say."  The  fame  of  this 
prison,  the  fame  of  the  discourses  there  and  the 
drinking  of  the  hemlock  are  one  of  the  most  prec 
ious  passages  in  the  history  of  the  world. 

The  rare  coincidence,  in  one  ugly  body,  of  the 
droll  and  the  martyr,  the  keen  street  and  market 
debater  with  the  sweetest  saint  known  to  any  his 
tory  at  that  time,  had  forcibly  struck  the  mind  of 
Plato,  so  capacious  of  these  contrasts ;  and  the  fig 
ure  of  Socrates  by  a  necessity  placed  itself  in  the 
foreground  of  the  scene,  as  the  fittest  dispenser  of 
the  intellectual  treasures  he  had  to  communicate. 
It  was  a  rare  fortune  that  this  .ZEsop  of  the  mob 
and  this  robed  scholar  should  meet,  to  make  each 
other  immortal  in  their  mutual  faculty.  The 
strange  synthesis  in  the  character  of  Socrates 
capped  the  synthesis  in  the  mind  of  Plato.  More 
over  by  this  means  he  was  able,  in  the  direct  way 
and  without  envy  to  avail  himself  of  the  wit  and 
weight  of  Socrates,  to  which  unquestionably  his 
own  debt  was  great ;  and  these  derived  again  their 
principal  advantage  from  the  perfect  art  of  Plato. 

It  remains  to  say  that  the  defect  of  Plato  in 
power  is  only  that  which  results  inevitably  from 
his  quality.  He  is  intellectual  in  his  aim  ;  and 
therefore,  in  expression,  literary.  Mounting  into 


PLATO;   OP,   THE  PHILOSOPHER.  75 

heaven,  diving  into  the  pit,  expounding  the  laws 
of  the  state,  the  passion  of  love,  the  remorse  of 
crime,  the  hope  of  the  parting  soul,  —  he  is  liter 
ary,  and  never  otherwise.  It  is  almost  the  sole  de 
duction  from  the  merit  of  Plato  that  his  writings 
have  not,  —  what  is  no  doubt  incident  to  this  reg- 
iiancy  of  intellect  in  his  work,  —  the  vital  author 
ity  which  the  screams  of  prophets  and  the  sermons 
of  unlettered  Arabs  and  Jews  possess.  There  is 
an  interval ;  and  to  cohesion,  contact  is  necessary. 

I  know  not  what  can  be  said  in  reply  to  this 
criticism  but  that  we  have  come  to  a  fact  in  the 
nature  of  things :  an  oak  is  not  an  orange.  The 
qualities  of  sugar  remain  with  sugar,  and  those  of 
salt  with  salt. 

In  the  second  place,  he  has  not  a  system.  The 
dearest  defenders  and  disciples  are  at  fault.  He 
attempted  a  theory  of  the  universe,  and  his  theory 
is  not  complete  or  self-evident.  One  man  thinks 
he  means  this,  and  another  that ;  he  has  said  one 
thing  in  one  place,  and  the  reverse  of  it  in  another 
place.  He  is  charged  with  having  failed  to  make 
the  transition  from  ideas  to  matter.  Here  is  the 
world,  sound  as  a  nut,  perfect,  not  the  smallest 
piece  of  chaos  left,  never  a  stitch 'nor  an  end,  not  a 
mark  of  haste,  or  botching,  or  second  thought ;  but 
the  theory  of  the  world  is  a  thing  of  shreds  and 
patches. 

The   longest   wave   is   quickly  lost   in  the  sea. 


76  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN, 

Plato  would  willingly  have  a  Platonism,  a  known 
and  accurate  expression  for  the  world,  and  it  should 
be  accurate.  It  shall  be  the  world  passed  through 
the  mind  of  Plato,  —  nothing  less.  Every  atom 
shall  have  the  Platonic  tinge;  every  atom,  every 
relation  or  quality  you  knew  before,  you  shall  kno>v 
again  and  find  here,  but  now  ordered  ;  not  nature, 
but  art.  And  you  shall  feel  that  Alexander  in 
deed  overran,  with  men  and  horses,  some  countries 
of  the  planet ;  but  countries,  and  things  of  which 
countries  are  made,  elements,  planet  itself,  laws 
of  planet  and  of  men,  have  passed  through  this 
man  as  bread  into  his  body,  and  become  no  longer 
bread,  but  body :  so  all  this  mammoth  morsel  has 
become  Plato.  He  has  clapped  copyright  on  the 
world.  This  is  the  ambition  of  individualism.  But 
the  mouthful  proves  too  large.  Boa  constrictor 
has  good  will  to  eat  it,  but  he  is  foiled.  He  falls 
abroad  in  the  attempt ;  and  biting,  gets  strangled  : 
the  bitten  world  holds  the  biter  fast  by  his  own 
teeth.  There  he  perishes:  unconquered  nature 
lives  on  and  forgets  him.  So  it  fares  with  all :  so 
must  it  fare  with  Plato.  In  view  of  eternal  -na 
ture,  Plato  turns  out  to  be  philosophical  exercita- 
tions.  He  argues  on  this  side  and  on  that.  The 
acutest  German,  the  lovingest  disciple,  could  never 
tell  what  Platonism  was ;  indeed,  admirable  texts 
can  be  quoted  on  both  sides  of  every  great  ques- 
tion  from  him. 


PLATO ;   OR,  THE  PHILOSOPHER.  77 

These  things  we  are  forced  to  say  if  we  must 
consider  the  effort  of  Plato  or  of  any  philosopher 
to  dispose  of  nature,  —  which  will  not  be  disposed 
of.  No  power  of  genius  has  ever  yet  had  the 
smallest  success  in  explaining  existence.  The  per 
fect  enigma  remains.  But  there  is  a-n  injustice  in 
assuming  this  ambition  for  Plato.  Let  us  not 
seem  to  treat  with  flippancy  his  venerable  name. 
Men,  in  proportion  to  their  intellect,  have  admitted 
his  transcendent  claims.  The  way  to  know  him  is  \ 
to  compare  him,  not  with  nature,  but  with  other 
men.  How  many  ages  have  gone  by,  and  he  re 
mains  unapproached  !  A  chief  structure  of  human 
wit,  like  Karnac,  or  the  mediaeval  cathedrals,  or 
the  Etrurian  remains,  it  requires  all  the  breath  of 
human  faculty  to  know  it.  I  think  it  is  trueliest 
seen  when  seen  with  the  most  respect.  His  sense 
deepens,  his  merits  multiply,  with  study.  When 
we  say,  Here  is  a  fine  collection  of  fables ;  or  when 
we  praise  the  style,  or  the  common  sense,  or  arith 
metic,  we  speak  as  boys,  and  much  of  our  im 
patient  criticism  of  the  dialectic,  I  suspect,  is  no 
better. 

The  criticism  is  like  our  impatience  of  miles, 
when  we  are  in  a  hurry ;  but  it  is  still  best  that 
a  mile  should  have  seventeen  hundred  and  sixty 
yards.  The  great -eyed  Plato  proportioned  the 
lights  and  shades  after  the  genius  of  our  life. 


PLATO:    NEW  READINGS. 


THE  publication,  in  Mr.  Bonn's  "  Serial  Libra 
ry,"  of  the  excellent  translations  of  Plato,  which 
we  esteem  one  of  the  chief  benefits  the  cheap  press 
has  yielded,  gives  us  an  occasion  to  take  hastily  a 
few  more  notes  of  the  elevation  and  bearings  of 
this  fixed  star  ;  or  to  add  a  bulletin,  like  the  jour 
nals,  of  Plato  at  the  latest  dates. 

Modern  science,  by  the  extent  of  its  generaliza 
tion,  has  learned  to  indemnify  the  student  of  man 
for  the  defects  of  individuals  by  tracing  growth 
and  ascent  in  races  ;  and,  by  the  simple  expedient 
of  lighting  up  the  vast  background,  generates  a 
feeling  of  complacency  and  hope.  The  human 
being  has  the  saurian  and  the  plant  in  his  rear. 
His  arts  and  sciences,  the  easy  issue  of  his  brain, 
look  glorious  when  prospectively  beheld  from  the 
distant  brain  of  ox,  crocodile  and  fish.  It  seems 
as  if  nature,  in  regarding  the  geologic  night  behind 
her,  when,  in  five  or  six  milleniums,  she  had  turned 
out  five  or  six  men,  as  Homer,  Phidias,  Menu  and 


PLATO;  NEW  READINGS.  79 

Columbus,  was  no  wise  discontented  with  the  re 
sult.  These  samples  attested  the  virtue  of  the  tree. 
These  were  a  clear  amelioration  of  trilobite  and 
saurus,  and  a  good  basis  for  further  proceeding. 
With  this  artist,  time  and  space  are  cheap,  and  she 
is  insensible  to  what  you  say  of  tedious  prepara 
tion.  She  waited  tranquilly  the  flowing  periods  of 
paleontology,  for  the  hour  to  be  struck  when  man 
should  arrive.  Then  periods  must  pass  before  the 
motion  of  the  earth  can  be  suspected  ;  then  before 
the  map  of  the  instincts  and  the  cultivable  powers 
can  be  drawn.  But  as  of  races,  so  the  succession 
of  individual  men  is  fatal  and  beautiful,  and  Plato 
has  the  fortune  in  the  history  of  mankind  to  mark 
an  epoch. 

Plato's  fame  does  not  stand  on  a  syllogism,  or 
on  any  masterpieces  of  the  Socratic  reasoning,  or 
on  any  thesis,  as  for  example  the  immortality  of 
the  soul.  He  is  more  than  an  expert,  or  a  school 
man,  or  a  geometer,  or  the  prophet  of  a  peculiar 
message.  He  represents  the  privilege  of  the  in 
tellect,  the  power,  namely,  of  carrying  up  every 
fact  to  successive  platforms  and  so  disclosing  in 
every  fact  a  germ  of  expansion.  These  expansions 
are  in  the  essence  of  thought.  The  naturalist 
would  never  help  us  to  them  by  any  discoveries 
of  the  extent  of  the  universe,  but  is  as  poor  when 
cataloguing  the  resolved  nebula  of  Orion,  as  when 


80  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

measuring  the  angles  of  an  acre.  But  the  Repub 
lic  of  Plato,  by  these  expansions,  may  be  said  to 
require  and  so  to  anticipate  the  astronomy  of 
Laplace.  The  expansions  are  organic.  The  mind 
does  not  create  what  it  perceives,  any  more  than 
the  eye  creates  the  rose.  In  ascribing  to  Plato  the 
merit  of  announcing  them,  we  only  say,  Here  was 
a  more  complete  man,  who  could  apply  to  nature 
the  whole  scale  of  the  senses,  the  understanding 
and  the  reason.  These  expansions  or  extensions 
consist  in  continuing  the  spiritual  sight  where  the 
horizon  falls  on  our  natural  vision,  and  by  this 
second  sight  discovering  the  long  lines  of  law 
which  shoot  in  every  direction.  Everywhere  he 
stands  on  a  path  which  has  no  end,  but  runs  con 
tinuously  round  the  universe.  Therefore  every 
word  becomes  an  exponent  of  nature.  Whatever 
he  looks  upon  discloses  a  second  sense,  and  ulterior 
senses.  His  perception  of  the  generation  of  con 
traries,  of  death  out  of  life  and  life  out  of  death,  — 
that  law  by  which,  in  nature,  decomposition  is  re- 
composition,  and  putrefaction  and  cholera  are  only 
signals  of  a  new  creation  ;  his  discernment  of  the 
little  in  the  large  and  the  large  in  the  small ; 
studying  the  state  in  the  citizen  and  the  citizen 
in  the  state  ;  and  leaving  it  doubtful  whether  he 
exhibited  the  Republic  as  an  allegory  on  the  edu 
cation  of  the  private  soul ;  his  beautiful  definitions 


PLATO;  NEW  READINGS.  81 

of  ideas,  of  time,  of  form,  of  figure,  of  the  line, 
sometimes  hypothetically  given,  as  his  defining  of 
virtue,  courage,  justice,  temperance  ;  his  love  of 
the  apologue,  and  his  apologues  themselves  ;  the 
cave  of  Trophonius  ;  the  ring  of  Gyges  ;  the  char 
ioteer  and  two  horses ;  the  golden,  silver,  brass  and 
iron  temperaments ;  Theuth  and  Thamus  ;  and  the 
visions  of  Hades  and  the  Fates,  —  fables  which 
have  imprinted  themselves  in  the  human  memory 
like  the  signs  of  the  zodiac ;  his  solif orm  eye  and 
his  bonif  orm  soul ;  his  doctrine  of  assimilation ;  his 
doctrine  of  reminiscence  ;  his  clear  vision  of  the 
laws  of  return,  or  reaction,  which  secure  instant 
justice  throughout  the  universe,  instanced  every 
where,  but  specialty  in  the  doctrine,  "  what  comes 
from  God  to  us,  returns  from  us  to  God, "  and  in 
Socrates'  belief  that  the  laws  below  are  sisters  of 
the  laws  above. 

More  striking  examples  are  his  moral  conclu 
sions.  Plato  affirms  the  coincidence  of  science 
and  virtue ;  for  vice  can  never  know  itself  and 
virtue,  but  virtue  knows  both  itself  and  vice. 
The  eye  attested  that  justice  was  best,  as  long  as 
it  was  profitable ;  Plato  affirms  that  it  is  profitable 
throughout ;  that  the  profit  is  intrinsic,  though  the 
just  conceal  his  justice  from  gods  and  men  ;  that 
it  is  better  to  suffer  injustice  than  to  do  it ;  that 
the  sinner  ought  to  covet  punishment ;  that  the 

VOL.  IV.  6 


82  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

lie  was  more  hurtful  than  homicide;  and  that 
ignorance,  or  the  involuntary  lie,  was  more  calami 
tous  than  involuntary  homicide ;  that  the  soul  is 
unwillingly  deprived  of  true  opinions,  and  that  no 
man  sins  willingly ;  that  the  order  or  proceeding 
of  nature  was  from  the  mind  to  the  body,  and, 
though  a  sound  body  cannot  restore  an  unsound 
mind,  yet  a  good  soul  can,  by  its  virtue,  render  the 
body  the  best  possible.  The  intelligent  have  a 
right  over  the  ignorant,  namely,  the  right  of  in 
structing  them.  The  right  punishment  of  one  out 
of  tune  is  to  make  him  play  in  tune ;  the  fine 
which  the  good,  refusing  to  govern,  ought  to  pay, 
is,  to  be  governed  by  a  worse  man ;  that  his  guards 
shall  not  handle  gold  and  silver,  but  shall  be  in 
structed  that  there  is  gold  and  silver  in  their  souls, 
which  will  make  men  willing  to  give  them  every 
thing  which  they  need. 

This  second  sight  explains  the  stress  laid  on 
geometry.  He  saw  that  the  globe  of  earth  was 
not  more  lawful  and  precise  than  was  the  super 
sensible  ;  that  a  celestial  geometry  was  in  place 
there,  as  a  logic  of  lines  and  angles  here  below ; 
that  the  world  was  throughout  mathematical ;  the 
proportions  are  constant  of  oxygen,  azote  and  lime; 
there  is  just  so  much  water  and  slate  and  magnesia ; 
not  less  are  the  proportions  constant  of  the  moral 
elements. 


PLATO;  NEW  READINGS.  83 

This  eldest  Goethe,  hating  varnish  and  false 
hood,  delighted  in  revealing  the  real  at  the  base 
of  the  accidental ;  in  discovering  connection,  con 
tinuity  and  representation  everywhere,  hating  insu 
lation  ;  and  appears  like  the  god  of  wealth  among 
the  cabins  of  vagabonds,  opening  power  and  capa 
bility  in  everything  he  touches.  Ethical  science 
was  new  and  vacant  when  Plato  could  write  thus : 
—  "  Of  all  whose  arguments  are  left  to  the  men 
of  the  present  time,  no  one  has  ever  yet  condemned 
injustice,  or  praised  justice,  otherwise  than  as  re 
spects  the  repute,  honors  and  emoluments  arising 
therefrom ;  while,  as  respects  either  of  them  in  it 
self,  and  subsisting  by  its  own  power  in  the  soul 
of  the  possessor,  and  concealed  both  from  gods 
and  men,  no  one  has  yet  sufficiently  investigated, 
either  in  poetry  or  prose  writings,  —  how,  namely, 
that  injustice  is  the  greatest  of  all  the  evils  that 
the  soul  has  within  it,  and  justice  the  greatest 
good." 

His  definition  of  ideas,  as  what  is  simple, 
permanent,  uniform  and  self-existent,  forever  dis 
criminating  them  from  the  notions  of  the  under 
standing,  marks  an  era  in  the  world.  He  was 
born,  to  behold  the  self-evolving  power  of  spirit, 
endless,  generator  of  new  ends ;  a  power  which  is 
the  key  at  once  to  the  centrality  and  the  eva 
nescence  of  things.  Plato  is  so  centred  that  he 


84  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

can  well  spare  all  his  dogmas.  Thus  the  fact  of 
knowledge  and  ideas  reveals  to  him  the  fact  of 
eternity;  and  the  doctrine  of  reminiscence  he 
offers  as  the  most  probable  particular  explication. 
Call  that  fanciful,  —  it  matters  not:  the  connec 
tion  between  our  knowledge  and  the  abyss  of 
being  is  still  real,  and  the  explication  must  be 
not  less  magnificent. 

He  has  indicated  every  eminent  point  in  spec 
ulation.  He  wrote  on  the  scale  of  the  mind 
itself,  so  that  all  things  have  symmetry  in  his 
tablet.  He  put  in  all  the  past,  without  weariness, 
and  descended  into  detail  with  a  courage  like 
that  he  witnessed  in  nature.  One  would  say 
that  his  forerunners  had  mapped  out  each  a  farm 
or  a  district  or  an  island,  in  intellectual  geog 
raphy,  but  that  Plato  first  drew  the  sphere.  He 
domesticates  the  soul  in  nature :  man  is  the  micro 
cosm.  All  the  circles  of  the  visible  heaven  repre 
sent  as  many  circles  in  the  rational  soul.  There 
is  no  lawless  particle,  and  there  is  nothing  casual 
in  the  action  of  the  human  mind.  The  names  of 
things,  too,  are  fatal,  following  the  nature  of 
things.  All  the  gods  of  the  Pantheon  are,  by 
their  names,  significant  of  a  profound  sense.  The 
gods  are  the  ideas.  Pan  is  speech,  or  manifesta 
tion  ;  Saturn,  the  contemplative ;  Jove,  the  regal 
soul;  and  Mars,  passion.  Venus  is  proportion; 


PLATO;  NEW  READINGS.  85 

Calliope,  the  soul  of  the  world;  Aglaia,  intellec 
tual  illustration. 


These  thoughts,  in  sparkles  of  light,  had  ap 
peared  often  to  pious  and  to  poetic  souls ;  but  this 
well-bred,  all-knowing  Greek  geometer  comes  with 
command,  gathers  them  all  up  into  rank  and  gra 
dation,  the  Euclid  of  holiness,  and  marries  the 
two  parts  of  nature.  Before  all  men,  he  saw  the 
intellectual  values  of  the  moral  sentiment.  He 
describes  his  own  ideal,  when  he  paints,  in  Ti- 
ma3us,  a  god  leading  things  from  disorder  into 
order.  He  kindled  a  fire  so  truly  in  the  centre 
that  we  see  the  sphere  illuminated,  and  can  dis 
tinguish  poles,  equator  and  lines  of  latitude, 
every  arc  and  node :  a  theory  so  averaged,  so 
modulated,  that  you  would  say  the  winds  of  ages 
had  swept  through  this  rhythmic  structure,  and 
not  that  it  was  the  brief  extempore  blotting  of 
one  short-lived  scribe.  Hence  it  has  happened 
that  a  very  well-marked  class  of  souls,  namely 
those  who  delight  in  giving  a  spiritual,  that  is,  an 
ethico-intellectual  expression  to  every  truth,  by 
exhibiting  an  ulterior  end  which  is  yet  legitimate 
to  it, —  are  said  to  Platonize.  Thus,  Michael  An- 
gelo  is  a  Platonist  in  his  sonnets :  Shakspeare  is 
a  Platonist  when  he  writes, — 


86  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

"  Nature  is  made  better  by  no  mean, 
But  nature  makes  that  mean," 

or,— 

"  He,  that  can  endure 

To  follow  with  allegiance  a  fallen  lord, 

Does  conquer  him  that  did  his  master  conquer, 

And  earns  a  place  in  the  story." 

Hamlet  is  a  pure  Platonist,  and  'tis  the  magnitude 
only  of  Shakspeare's  proper  genius  that  hinders 
him  from  being  classed  as  the  most  eminent  of 
this  school.  Swedenborg,  throughout  his  prose 
poem  of  "  Conjugal  Love,"  is  a  Platonist. 

His  subtlety  commended  him  to  men  of  thought. 
The  secret  of  his  popular  success  is  the  moral  aim 
which  endeared  him  to  mankind.  "  Intellect,"  he 
said,  "  is  king  of  heaven  and  of  earth ; "  but  in 
Plato,  intellect  is  always  moral.  His  writings 
have  also  the  sempiternal  youth  of  poetry.  For 
their  arguments,  most  of  them,  might  have  been 
couched  in  sonnets :  and  poetry  has  never  soared 
higher  than  in  the  TimaBus  and  the  Phsedrus.  As 
the  poet,  too,  he  is  only  contemplative.  He  did 
not,  like  Pythagoras,  break  himself  with  an  insti 
tution.  All  his  painting  in  the  Republic  must  be 
esteemed  mythical,  with  intent  to  bring  out,  some 
times  in  violent  colors,  his  thought.  You  cannot 
institute,  without  peril  of  charlatanism. 

It  was  a  high  scheme,  his  absolute  privilege 
for  the  best  ( which,  to  make  emphatic,  he  ex- 


PLATO;  NEW  READINGS.  87 

\ 

pressed  by  community  of  women),  as  the  premium 
which  he  would  set  on  grandeur.  There  shall 
be  exempts  of  two  kinds :  first,  those  who  by  de 
merit  have  put  themselves  below  protection, — 
outlaws ;  and  secondly,  those  who  by  eminence  of 
nature  and  desert  are  out  of  the  reach  of  your 
rewards.  Let  such  be  free  of  the  city  and  above 
the  law.  We  confide  them  to  themselves;  let 
them  do  with  us  as  they  will.  Let  none  presume 
to  measure  the  irregularities  of  Michael  Angelo 
and  Socrates  by  village  scales. 

In  his  eighth  book  of  the  Eepublic,  he  throws  a 
little  mathematical  dust  in  our  eyes.  I  am  sorry 
to  see  him,  after  such  noble  superiorities,  permit 
ting  the  lie  to  governors.  Plato  plays  Providence 
a  little  with  the  baser  sort,  as  people  allow  them 
selves  with  their  dogs  and  cats. 


SWEDENBORG;  OR,  THE  MYSTIC. 


III. 

SWEDENBORG;  OE,  THE  MYSTIC. 


AMONG  eminent  persons,  those  who  are  most 
dear  to  men  are  not  of  the  class  which  the  econo 
mist  calls  producers  :  they  have  nothing  in  their 
hands;  they  have  not  cultivated  corn,  nor  made 
bread ;  they  have  not  led  out  a  colony,  nor  invented 
a  loom.  A  higher  class,  in  the  estimation  and 
love  of  this  city-building  market-going  race  of  man 
kind,  are  the  poets,  who,  from  the  intellectual 
kingdom,  feed  the  thought  and  imagination  with 
ideas  and  pictures  which  raise  men  out  of  the 
world  of  corn  and  money,  and  console  them  for  the 
short-comings  of  the  day  and  the  meanness  of  labor 
and  traffic.  Then,  also,  the  philosopher  has  his 
value,  who  flatters  the  intellect  of  this  laborer  by 
engaging  him  with  subtleties  which  instruct  him  in 
new  facilities.  Others  may  build  cities ;  he  is  to 
understand  them  and  keep  them  in  awe.  But  there 
is  a  class  who  lead  us  into  another  region,  —  the 
world  of  morals  or  of  will.  What  is  singular  about 
this  region  of  thought  is  its  claim.  Wherever  the 


92  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

sentiment  of  right  comes  in,  it  takes  precedence  of 
every  thing  else.  For  other  things,  I  make  poetry 
of  them  ;  but  the  moral  sentiment  makes  poetry  of 
me. 

I  have  sometimes  thought  that  he  would  render 
the  greatest  service  to  modern  criticism,  who 
should  draw  the  line  of  relation  that  subsists  be 
tween  Shakspeare  and  Swedenborg.  The  human 
mind  stands  ever  in  perplexity,  demanding  intel 
lect,  demanding  sanctity,  impatient  equally  of  each 
without  the  other.  The  reconciler  has  not  yet  ap 
peared.  If  we  tire  of  the  saints,  Shakspeare  is 
our  city  of  refuge.  Yet  the  instincts  presently 
teach  that  the  problem  of  essence  must  take  pre 
cedence  of  all  others ;  —  the  questions  of  Whence  ? 
What?  and  Whither?  and  the  solution  of  these 
must  be  in  a  life,  and  not  in  a  book.  A  drama  or 
poem  is  a  proximate  or  oblique  reply ;  but  Moses, 
Menu,  Jesus,  work  directly  on  this  problem.  The 
atmosphere  of  moral  sentiment  is  a  region  of  grand 
eur  which  reduces  all  material  magnificence  to 
toys,  yet  opens  to  every  wretch  that  has  reason  the 
doors  of  the  universe.  Almost  with  a  fierce  haste 
it  lays  its  empire  on  the  man.  In  the  language 
of  the  Koran,  "  God  said,  the  heaven  and  the 
earth  and  all  that  is  between  them,  think  ye  that 
we  created  them  in  jest,  and  that  ye  shall  not  re 
turn  to  us  ?  "  It  is  the  kingdom  of  the  will,  and 


SWEDENBORG;   OR,   THE  MYSTIC.  93 

by  inspiring  the  will,  which  is  the  seat  of  personal 
ity,  seems  to  convert  the  universe  into  a  per 
son  ;  — 

"  The  realms  of  being  to  no  other  bow, 
Not  only  all  are  thine,  but  all  are  Thou." 

All  men  are  commanded  by  the  saint.  The 
Koran  makes  a  distinct  class  of  those  who  are  by 
nature  good,  and  whose  goodness  has  an  influence 
on  others,  and  pronounces  this  class  to  be  the  aim 
of  creation  :  the  other  classes  are  admitted  to  the 
feast  of  being,  only  as  following  in  the  train  of 
this.  And  the  Persian  poet  exclaims  to  a  soul  of 
this  kind,  — 

"  Go  boldly  forth,  and  feast  on  being's  banquet; 
Thou  art  the  called,  —  the  rest  admitted  with  thee." 

The  privilege  of  this  caste  is  an  access  to  the 
secrets  and  structure  of  nature  by  some  higher 
method  than  by  experience.  In  common  parlance, 
what  one  man  is  said  to  learn  by  experience,  a  man 
of  extraordinary  sagacity  is  said,  without  expe 
rience,  to  divine.  The  Arabians  say,  that  Abul 
Khain,  the  mystic,  and  Abu  Ali  Seena,  the  philos 
opher,  conferred  together ;  and,  on  parting,  the 
philosopher  said,  "  All  that  he  sees,  I  know  ;  "  and 
the  mystic  said,  "  All  that  he  knows,  I  see."  If 
one  should  ask  the  reason  of  this  intuition,  the 
solution  would  lead  us  into  that  property  which 


94  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

Plato  denoted  as  Reminiscence,  and  which  is  im 
plied  by  the  Bramins  in  the  tenet  of  Transmigra 
tion.  The  soul  having  been  often  born,  or,  as  the 
Hindoos  say,  "  travelling  the  path  of  existence 
through  thousands  of  births,"  having  beheld  the 
things  which  are  here,  those  which  are  in  heaven 
and  those  which  are  beneath,  there  is  nothing  of 
which  she  has  not  gained  the  knowledge :  no  won 
der  that  she  is  able  to  recollect,  in  regard  to  any 
one  thing,  what  formerly  she  knew.  "For,  all 
things  in  nature  being  linked  and  related,  and  the 
soul  having  heretofore  known  all,  nothing  hinders 
but  that  any  man  who  has  recalled  to  mind,  or  ac 
cording  to  the  common  phrase  has  learned,  one 
thing  only,  should  of  himself  recover  all  his  ancient 
knowledge,  and  find  out  again  all  the  rest,  if  he 
have  but  courage  and  faint  not  in  the  midst  of  his 
researches.  For  inquiry  and  learning  is  reminis 
cence  all."  How  much  more,  if  he  that  inquires 
be  a  holy  and  godlike  soul !  For  by  being  as 
similated  to  the  original  soul,  by  whom  and  after 
whom  all  things  subsist,  the  soul  of  man  does  then 
easily  flow  into  all  things,  and  all  things  flow  into 
it :  they  mix ;  and  he  is  present  and  sympathetic 
with  their  structure  and  law. 

This  path  is  difficult,  secret  and  beset  with  ter 
ror.  The  ancients  called  it  ecstacy  or  absence,  — 
a  getting  out  of  their  bodies  to  think.  All  relig- 


SWEDENBORG;   OR,   THE  MYSTIC.  95 

ions  history  contains  traces  of  the  trance  of  saints, 
—  a  beatitude,  but  without  any  sign  of  joy ;  ear 
nest,  solitary,  even  sad  ;  "  the  flight,"  Plotinus 
called  it,  "  of  the  alone  to  the  alone  ; "  Mv^o-ts,  the  1 
closing  of  the  eyes,  —  whence  our  word,  Mystic. 
The  trances  of  Socrates,  Plotinus,  Porphyry,  Beh- 
men,  Bunyan,  Fox,  Pascal,  Guy  on,  Swedenborg, 
will  readily  come  to  mind.  But  what  as  readily 
comes  to  mind  is  the  accompaniment  of  disease. 
This  beatitude  comes  in  terror,  and  with  shocks  to 
the  mind  of  the  receiver. 

"  It  o'erinforms  the  tenement  of  clay," 

and  drives  the  man  mad ;  or  gives  a  certain  viol 
ent  bias  which  taints  his  judgment.  In  the  chief 
examples  of  religious  illumination  somewhat  mor 
bid  has  mingled,  in  spite  of  the  unquestionable  in 
crease  of  mental  power.  Must  the  highest  good 
drag  after  it  a  quality  which  neutralizes  and  dis 
credits  it  ?  — 

"  Indeed,  it  takes 

From  our  achievements,  when  performed  at  height, 
The  pith  and  marrow  of  our  attribute." 

Shall  we  say,  that  the  economical  mother  disburses 
so  much  earth  and  so  much  fire,  by  weight  and 
meter,  to  make  a  man,  and  will  not  add  a  penny 
weight  though  a  nation  is  perishing  for  a  leader  ? 
Therefore  the  men  of  God  purchased  their  science 


96  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

by  folly  or  pain.  If  you  will  have  pure  carbon, 
carbuncle,  or  diamond,  to  make  the  brain  transpar 
ent,  the  trunk  and  organs  shall  be  so  much  the 
grosser:  instead  of  porcelain  they  are  potter's 
earth,  clay,  or  mud. 

In  modern  times  no  such  remarkable  example  of 
this  introverted  mind  has  occurred  as  in  Emanuel 
Swedenborg,  born  in  Stockholm,  in  1688.  This 
man,  who  appeared  to  his  contemporaries  a  vision 
ary  and  elixir  of  moonbeams,  no  doubt  led  the  most 
real  life  of  any  man  then  in  the  world :  and  now, 
when  the  royal  and  ducal  Frederics,  Christians  and 
Brunswicks  of  that  day  have  slid  into  oblivion,  he 
begins  to  spread  himself  into  the  minds  of  thou 
sands.  As  happens  in  great  men,  he  seemed,  by 
the  variety  and  amount  of  his  powers,  to  be  a  com 
position  of  several  persons,  —  like  the  giant  fruits 
which  are  matured  in  gardens  by  the  union  of  four 
or  five  single  blossoms.  His  frame  is  on  a  larger 
scale  and  possesses  the  advantages  of  size.  As  it 
is  easier  to  see  the  reflection  of  the  great  sphere 
in  large  globes,  though  defaced  by  some  crack  or 
blemish,  than  in  drops  of  water,  so  men  of  large 
calibre,  though  with  some  eccentricity  or  madness, 
like  Pascal  or  Newton,  help  us  more  than  balanced 
mediocre  minds. 

His  youth  and  training  could  not  fail  to  be  ex 
traordinary.  Such  a  boy  could  not  whistle  or 


SWEDENBORG;   OR,   THE  MYSTIC.  97 

dance,  but  goes  grubbing  into  mines  and  moun 
tains,  prying  into  chemistry  and  optics,  physiology, 
mathematics  and  astronomy,  to  find  images  fit  for 
the  measure  of  his  versatile  and  capacious  brain. 
He  was  a  scholar  from  a  child,  and  was  educated 
at  Upsala.  At  the  age  of  twenty-eight  he  was 
made  Assessor  of  the  Board  of  Mines  by  Charles 
XII.  In  1716,  he  left  home  for  four  years  and 
visited  the  universities  of  England,  Holland, 
France  and  Germany.  He  performed  a  notable 
feat  of  engineering  in  1718,  at  the  siege  of  Fred- 
erikshald,  by  hauling  two  galleys,  five  boats  and  a 
sloop,  some  fourteen  English  miles  overland,  for 
the  royal  service.  In  1721  he  journeyed  over  Eu 
rope  to  examine  mines  and  smelting  works.  He 
published  in  1716  his  Daedalus  Hyperboreus,  and 
from  this  time  for  the  next  thirty  years  was  em 
ployed  in  the  composition  and  publication  of  his 
scientific  works.  With  the  like  force  he  threw 
himself  into  theology.  In  1743,  when  he  was  fifty- 
four  years  old,  what  is  called  his  illumination  be 
gan.  All  his  metallurgy  and  transportation  of 
ships  overland  was  absorbed  into  this  ecstasy.  He 
ceased  to  publish  any  more  scientific  books,  with 
drew  from  his  practical  labors  and  devoted  himself 
to  the  writing  and  publication  of  his  voluminous 
theological  works,  which  were  printed  at  his  own 
expense,  or  at  that  of  the  Duke  of  Brunswick  or 

VOL.  IV.  7 


98  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

other  prince,  at  Dresden,  Leipsic,  London,  or  Am 
sterdam.  Later,  lie  resigned  his  office  of  Assessor  : 
the  salary  attached  to  this  office  continued  to  be 
paid  to  him  during  his  life.  His  duties  had 
brought  him  into  intimate  acquaintance  with  King 
Charles  XII.,  by  whom  he  was  much  consulted  and 
honored.  The  like  favor  was  continued  to  him  by 
his  successor.  At  the  Diet  of  1751,  Count  Hop- 
ken  says,  the  most  solid  memorials  on  finance  were 
from  his  pen.  In  Sweden  he  appears  to  have  at 
tracted  a  marked  regard.  His  rare  science  and 
practical  skill,  and  the  added  fame  of  second  sight 
and  extraordinary  religious  knowledge  and  gifts, 
drew  to  him  queens,  nobles,  clergy,  shipmasters 
and  people  about  the  ports  through  which  he  was 
wont  to  pass  in  his  many  voyages.  The  clergy  in 
terfered  a  little  with  the  importation  and  publica 
tion  of  his  religious  works,  but  he  seems  to  have 
kept  the  friendship  of  men  in  power.  He  was 
never  married.  He  had  great  modesty  and  gentle 
ness  of  bearing.  His  habits  were  simple  ;  he  lived 
on  bread,  milk  and  vegetables ;  he  lived  in  a  house 
situated  in  a  large  garden ;  he  went  several  times 
to  England,  where  he  does  not  seem  to  have  at 
tracted  any  attention  whatever  from  the  learned 
or  the  eminent ;  and  died  at  London,  March  29, 
1772,  of  apoplexy,  in  his  eighty-fifth  year.  He  is 
described,  when  in  London,  as  a  man  of  a  quiet, 


SWEDEN BORG;   OR,    THE  MYSTIC.  99 

clerical  habit,  not  averse  to  tea  and  coffee,  and 
kind'  to  children.  He  wore  a  sword  when  in  full 
velvet  dress,  and,  whenever  he  walked  out,  carried 
a  gold-headed  cane.  There  is  a  common  portrait 
of  him  in  antique  coat  and  wig,  but  the  face  has  a 
wandering  or  vacant  air. 

The  genius  which  was  to  penetrate  the  science 
of  the  age  with  a  far  more  subtle  science ;  to  pass 
the  bounds  of  space  and  time,  venture  into  the  dim 
spirit-realm,  and  attempt  to  establish  a  new  relig 
ion  in  the  world,  —  began  its  lessons  in  quarries 
and  forges,  in  the  smelting-pot  and  crucible,  in 
ship-yards  and  dissecting-rooms.  No  one  man  is 
perhaps  able  to  judge  of  the  merits  of  his  works  on 
so  many  subjects.  One  is  glad  to  learn  that  his 
books  on  mines  and  metals  are  held  in  the  highest 
esteem  by  those  who  understand  these  matters.  It 
seems  that  he  anticipated  much  science  of  the  nine 
teenth  century ;  anticipated,  in  astronomy,  the  dis 
covery  of  the  seventh  planet,  —  but,  unhappily,  not 
also  of  the  eighth  ;  anticipated  the  views  of  mod 
ern  astronomy  in  regard  to  the  generation  of  earths 
by  the  sun ;  in  magnetism,  some  important  experi 
ments  and  conclusions  of  later  students ;  in  chemis 
try,  the  atomic  theory ;  in  anatomy,  the  discoveries 
of  Schlichting,  Monro  and  Wilson  ;  and  first  de 
monstrated  the  office  of  the  lungs.  His  excellent 
English  editor  magnanimously  lays  no  stress  on  his 


100  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

discoveries,  since  lie  was  too  great  to  care  to  be 
original ;  and  we  are  to  judge,  by  what  lie  can 
spare,  of  what  remains. 

A  colossal  soul,  he  lies  vast  abroad  on  his  times, 
uiicomprehended  by  them,  and  requires  a  long  fo 
cal  distance  to  be  seen ;  suggests,  as  Aristotle,  Ba 
con,  Selden,  Humboldt,  that  a  certain  vastness  of 
learning,  or  quasi  omnipresence  of  the  human  soul 
in  nature,  is  possible.  His  superb  speculation,  as 
from  a  tower,  over  nature  and  arts,  without  ever 
losing  sight  of  the  texture  and  sequence  of  things, 
almost  realizes  his  own  picture,  in  the  "  Principia," 
of  the  original  integrity  of  man.  Over  and  above 
the  merit  of  his  particular  discoveries,  is  the  capi 
tal  merit  of  his  self-equality.  A  drop  of  water  has 
the  properties  of  the  sea,  but  cannot  exhibit  a 
storm.  There  is  beauty  of  a  concert,  as  well  as  of 
a  flute ;  strength  of  a  host,  as  well  as  of  a  hero  ; 
and,  in  Swedenborg,  those  who  are  best  acquainted 
with  modern  books  will  most  admire  the  merit  of 
mass.  One  of  the  missouriums  and  mastodons  of 
literature,  he  is  not  to  be  measured  by  whole  col 
leges  of  ordinary  scholars.  His  stalwart  presence 
would  flutter  the  gowns  of  an  university.  Our 
books  are  false  by  being  fragmentary ;  their  sen 
tences  are  bonmots,  and  not  parts  of  natural  dis 
course  ;  childish  expressions  of  surprise  or  pleasure 
in  nature ;  or,  worse,  owing  a  brief  notoriety  to 


SWEDENBORG;   OU,   THE  MYSTIC.         101 

their  petulance,  or  aversion  from  the  order  of  na 
ture  ;  —  being  some  curiosity  or  oddity,  designedly 
not  in  harmony  with  nature  and  purposely  framed 
to  excite  surprise,  as  jugglers  do  by  concealing 
tlieir  means.  But  Swedeiiborg  is  systematic  and 
respective  of  the  world  in  every  sentence  ;  all  the 
means  are  orderly  given ;  his  faculties  work  with 
astronomic  punctuality,  and  this  admirable  writing 
is  pure  from  all  pertness  or  egotism. 

Swedeiiborg  was  born  into  an  atmosphere  of 
great  ideas.  It  is  hard  to  say  what  was  his  own  : 
yet  his  life  was  dignified  by  noblest  pictures  of  the 
universe.  The  robust  Aristotelian  method,  with 
its  breadth  and  adequateness,  shaming  our  sterile 
and  linear  logic  by  its  genial  radiation,  conversant 
with  series  and  degree,  with  effects  and  ends,  skil 
ful  to  discriminate  power  from  form,  essence  from 
accident,  and  opening,  by  its  terminology  and  defi 
nition,  high  roads  into  nature,  had  trained  a  race  of 
athletic  philosophers.  Harvey  had  shown  the  cir 
culation  of  the  blood ;  Gilbert  had  shown  that  the 
earth  was  a  magnet ;  Descartes,  taught  by  Gilbert's 
magnet,  with  its  vortex,  spiral  and  polarity,  had 
filled  Europe  with  the  leading  thought  of  vortical 
motion,  as  the  secret  of  nature.  Newton,  in  the 
year  in  which  Swedeiiborg  was  born,  published  the 
"  Principia,"  and  established  the  universal  gravity. 
Malpighi,  following  the  high  doctrines  of  Hippo- 


102  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

crates,  Lencippus  and  Lucretius,  had  given  em 
phasis  to  the  dogma  that  nature  works  in  leasts, 
—  "  tota  in  minimis  existit  natura."  Unrivalled 
dissectors,  Swammerdam,  Leuwenhoek,  Winslow, 
Eustachius,  Heister,  Vesalius,  Boerhaave,  had  left 
nothing  for  scalpel  or  microscope  to  reveal  in  human 
or  comparative  anatomy :  LinnaBus,  his  contempo 
rary,  was  affirming,  in  his  beautiful  science,  that 
"  Nature  is  always  like  herself :  "  and,  lastly,  the 
nobility  of  method,  the  largest  application  of  prin 
ciples,  had  been  exhibited  by  Leibnitz  and  Chris 
tian  Wolff,  in  cosmology  ;  whilst  Locke  and  Gro- 
tius  had  drawn  the  moral  argument.  What  was 
left  for  a  genius  of  the  largest  calibre  but  to  go 
over  their  ground  and  verify  and  unite?  It  is  easy 
to  see,  in  these  minds,  the  origin  of  Swedenborg's 
studies,  and  the  suggestion  of  his  problems.  He 
had  a  capacity  to  entertain  and  vivify  these  volumes 
of  thought.  Yet  the  proximity  of  these  geniuses, 
one  or  other  of  whom  had  introduced  all  his  lead 
ing  ideas,  makes  Swedenborg  another  example  of 
the  difficulty,  even  in  a  highly  fertile  genius,  of 
proving  originality,  the  first  birth  and  annunciation 
of  one  of  the  laws  of  nature. 

He  named  his  favorite  views  the  doctrine  of 
Forms,  the  doctrine  of  Series  and  Degrees,  the 
doctrine  of  Influx,  the  doctrine  of  Correspondence. 
His  statement  of  these  doctrines  deserves  to  be 


SWEDENBORG;  OR,   THE  MYSTIC.         103 

studied  in  his  books.  Not  every  man  can  read 
them,  but  they  will  reward  him  who  can.  His 
theologic  works  are  valuable  to  illustrate  these. 
His  writings  would  be  a  sufficient  library  to  a 
lonely  and  athletic  student ;  and  the  "  Economy 
of  the  Animal  Kingdom "  is  one  of  those  books 
which,  by  the  sustained  dignity  of  thinking,  is  an 
honor  to  the  human  race.  He  had  studied  spars 
and  metals  to  some  purpose.  His  varied  and  solid 
knowledge  makes  his  style  lustrous  with  points 
and  shooting  spiculae  of  thought,  and  resembling 
one  of  those  winter  mornings  when  the  air  sparkles 
with  crystals.  The  grandeur  of  the  topics  makes 
the  grandeur  of  the  style.  He  was  apt  for  cosmol 
ogy,  because  of  that  native  perception  of  identity 
which  made  mere  size  of  no  account  to  him.  In 
the  atom  of  magnetic  iron  he  saw  the  quality  which 
would  generate  the  spiral  motion  of  sun  and  planet. 
The  thoughts  in  which  he  lived  were,  the  univer 
sality  of  each  law  in  nature  ;  the  Platonic  doctrine 
of  the  scale  or  degrees ;  the  version  or  conversion 
of  each  into  other,  and  so  the  correspondence  of 
all  the  parts;  the  fine  secret  that  little  explains 
large,  and  large,  little ;  the  centrality  of  man  in 
nature,  and  the  connection  that  subsists  through 
out  all  things  :  he  saw  that  the  human  body  was 
strictly  universal,  or  an  instrument  through  which 
the  soul  feeds  and  is  fed  by  the  whole  of  matter  ; 


104  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

so  that  he  held,  in  exact  antagonism  to  the  skeptics, 
that  "  the  wiser  a  man  is,  the  more  will  he  be  a  wor 
shipper  of  the  Deity."  In  short,  he  was  a  believer 
in  the  Identity-philosophy,  which  he  held  not  idly, 
as  the  dreamers  of  Berlin  or  Boston,  but  which  he 
experimented  with  and  established  through  years 
of  labor,  with  the  heart  and  strength  of  the  rudest 
Viking  that  his  rough  Sweden  ever  sent  to  battle. 

This  theory  dates  from  the  oldest  philosophers, 
and  derives  perhaps  its  best  illustration  from  the 
newest.  It  is  this,  that  Nature  iterates  her  means 
perpetually  on  successive  planes.  In  the  old  aphor 
ism,  nature  is  always  self-similar.  In  the  plant, 
the  eye  or  germinative  point  opens  to  a  leaf,  then  to 
another  leaf,  with  a  power  of  transforming  the  leaf 
into  radicle,  stamen,  pistil,  petal,  bract,  sepal,  or  seed. 
The  whole  art  of  the  plant  is  still  to  repeat  leaf  on 
leaf  without  end,  the  more  or  less  of  heat,  light, 
moisture  and  food  determining  the  form  it  shall 
assume.  In  the  animal,  nature  makes  a  vertebra,  or 
a  spine  of  vertebrae,  and  helps  herself  still  by  a  new 
spine,  with  a  limited  power  of  modifying  its  form, — 
spine  on  spine,  to  the  end  of  the  world.  A  poetic 
anatomist,  in  our  own  day,  teaches  that  a  snake, 
being  a  horizontal  line,  and  man,  being  an  erect 
line,  constitute  a  right  angle  ;  and  between  the 
lines  of  this  mystical  quadrant  all  animated  beings 
find  their  place :  and  he  assumes  the  hair-worm, 


SWEDENBORG;  OR,   THE  MYSTIC.         105 

the  span-worm,  or  the  snake,  as  the  type  or  predic 
tion  of  the  spine.  Manifestly,  at  the  end  of  the 
spine,  Nature  puts  out  smaller  spines,  as  arms  ;  at. 
the  end  of  the  arms,  new  spines,  as  hands ;  at  the 
other  end,  she  repeats  the  process,  as  legs  and  feet. 
At  the  top  of  the  column  she  puts  out  another 
spine,  which  doubles  or  loops  itself  over,  as  a  span- 
worm,  into  a  ball,  and  forms  the  skull,  with  extrem 
ities  again :  the  hands  being  now  the  upper  jaw, 
the  feet  the  lower  jaw,  the  fingers  and  toes  being 
represented  this  time  by  upper  and  lower  teeth. 
This  new  spine  is  destined  to  high  uses.  It  is  a 
new  man  on  the  shoulders  of  the  last.  It  can  al 
most  shed  its  trunk  and  manage  to  live  alone,  ac 
cording  to  the  Platonic  idea  in  the  TimaBus. 
Within  it,  on  a  higher  plane,  all  that  was  done  in 
the  trunk  repeats  itself.  Nature  recites  her  lesson 
once  more  in  a  higher  mood.  The  mind  is  a  finer 
body,  and  resumes  its  functions  of  feeding,  digest 
ing,  absorbing,  excluding  and  generating,  in  a  new 
and  ethereal  element.  Here  in  the  brain  is  all  the 
process  of  alimentation  repeated,  in  the  acquiring, 
comparing,  digesting  and  assimilating  of  experi 
ence.  Here  again  is  the  mystery  of  generation  re 
peated.  In  the  brain  are  male  and  female  facul 
ties  ;  here  is  marriage,  here  is  fruit.  And  there  is 
no  limit  to  this  ascending  scale,  but  series  on  se 
ries.  Every  thing,  at  the  end  of  one  use,  is  taken 


106  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

up  into  the  next,  eacli  series  punctually  repeating 
every  organ  and  process  of  the  last.  We  are 
adapted  to  infinity.  We  are  hard  to  please,  and 
love  nothing  which  ends ;  and  in  nature  is  no  end, 
but  every  thing  at  the  end  of  one  use  is  lifted  into 
a  superior,  and  the  ascent  of  these  things  climbs 
into  daemonic  and  celestial  natures.  Creative  force, 
like  a  musical  composer,  goes  on  unweariedly  re 
peating  a  simple  air  or  theme,  now  high,  now  low, 
in  solo,  in  chorus,  ten  thousand  times  reverberated, 
till  it  fills  earth  and  heaven  with  the  chant. 

Gravitation,  as  explained  by  Newton,  is  good, 
but  grander  when  we  find  chemistry  only  an  exten 
sion  of  the  law  of  masses  into  particles,  and  that 
the  atomic  theory  shows  the  action  of  chemistry  to 
be  mechanical  also.  Metaphysics  shows  us  a  sort 
of  gravitation  operative  also  in  the  mental  phenom 
ena  ;  and  the  terrible  tabulation  of  the  French  sta 
tists  brings  every  piece  of  whim  and  humor  to  be 
reducible  also  to  exact  numerical  ratios.  If  one 
man  in  twenty  thousand,  or  in  thirty  thousand,  eats 
shoes  or  marries  his  grandmother,  then  in  every 
twenty  thousand  or  thirty  thousand  is  found  one 
man  who  eats  shoes  or  marries  his  grandmother. 
What  we  call  gravitation,  and  fancy  ultimate,  is 
one  fork  of  a  mightier  stream  for  which  we  have 
yet  no  name.  Astronomy  is  excellent ;  but  it  must 
come  up  into  life  to  have  its  full  value,  and  not  re- 


SWEDENBORG;   OR,    THE  MYSTIC.         107 

main  there  in  globes  and  spaces.  The  globule  of 
blood  gyrates  around  its  own  axis  in  the  human 
veins,  as  the  planet  in  the  sky ;  and  the  circles  of 
intellect  relate  to  those  of  the  heavens.  Each  law 
of  nature  has  the  like  universality ;  eating,  sleep  or 
hybernation,  rotation,  generation,  metamorphosis, 
vortical  motion,  which  is  seen  in  eggs  as  in  planets. 
These  grand  rhymes  or  returns  in  nature,  —  the 
dear,  best-known  face  startling  us  at  every  turn, 
under  a  mask  so  unexpected  that  we  think  it  the 
face  of  a  stranger,  and  carrying  up  the  semblance 
into  divine  forms,  —  delighted  the  prophetic  eye  of 
Swedenborg ;  and  he  must  be  reckoned  a  leader  in 
that  revolution,  which,  by  giving  to  science  an  idea, 
has  given  to  an  aimless  accumulation  of  experi 
ments,  guidance  and  form  and  a  beating  heart. 

I  own  with  some  regret  that  his  printed  works 
amount  to  about  fifty  stout  octavos,  his  scientific 
works  being  about  half  of  the  whole  number ;  and 
it  appears  that  a  mass  of  manuscript  still  unedited 
remains  in  the  royal  library  at  Stockholm.  The 
scientific  works  have  just  now  been  translated  into 
English,  in  an  excellent  edition. 

Swedenborg  printed  these  scientific  books  in  the 
ten  years  from  1734  to  1744,  and  they  remained 
from  that  time  neglected ;  and  now,  after  their 
century  is  complete,  he  has  at  last  found  a  pupil 
in  Mr.  Wilkinson,  in  London,  a  philosophic  critic, 


108  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

with  a  coequal  vigor  of  understanding  and  imagi 
nation  comparable  only  to  Lord  Bacon's,  who  has 
restored  his  master's  buried  books  to  the  day,  and 
transferred  them,  with  every  advantage,  from  their 
forgotten  Latin  into  English,  to  go  round  the  world 
in  our  commercial  and  conquering  tongue.  This 
startling  reappearance  of  Swedeiiborg,  after  a  hun 
dred  years,  in  his  pupil,  is  not  the  least  remarkable 
fact  in  his  history.  Aided  it  is  said  by  the  munifi 
cence  of  Mr.  Clissold,  and  also  by  his  literary  skill, 
this  piece  of  poetic  justice  is  done.  The  admirable 
preliminary  discourses  with  which  Mr.  Wilkinson 
has  enriched  these  volumes,  throw  all  the  contem 
porary  philosophy  of  England  into  shade,  and  leave 
me  nothing  to  say  on  their  proper  grounds. 

The  "  Animal  Kingdom  "is  a  book  of  wonder 
ful  merits.  It  was  written  with  the  highest  end,  — 
to  put  science  and  the  soul,  long  estranged  from 
each  other,  at  one  again.  It  was  an  anatomist's 
account  of  the  human  body,  in  the  highest  style 
of  poetry.  Nothing  can  exceed  the  bold  and  brill 
iant  treatment  of  a  subject  usually  so  dry  and 
repulsive.  He  saw  nature  "  wreathing  through 
an  everlasting  spiral,  with  wheels  that  never  dry, 
on  axles  that  never  creak,  "  and  sometimes  sought 
"  to  uncover  those  secret  recesses  where  Nature  is 
sitting  at  the  fires  in  the  depths  of  her  labora 
tory;"  whilst  the  picture  comes  recommended  by 


SWEDENBORG;   OR,   THE  MYSTIC.        109 

the  hard  fidelity  with  which  it  is  based  on  practical 
anatomy.  It  is  remarkable  that  this  sublime  genius 
decides  peremptorily  for  the  analytic,  against  the 
synthetic  method  ;  and,  in  a  book  whose  genius  is 
a  daring  poetic  synthesis,  claims  to  confine  himself 
to  a  rigid  experience. 

lie  knows,  if  he  only,  the  flowing  of  nature,  and 
how  wise  was  that  old  answer  of  Amasis  to  him 
who  bade  him  drink  up  the  sea,  —  "  Yes,  willingly, 
if  you  will  stop  the  rivers  that  flow  in.  "  Few 
knew  as  much  about  nature  and  her  subtle  man 
ners,  or  expressed  more  subtly  her  goings.  He 
thought  as  large  a  demand  is  made  on  our  faith  by 
nature,  as  by  miracles.  "  He  noted  that  in  her 
proceeding  from  first  principles  through  her  several 
subordinations,  there  was  no  state  through  which 
she  did  not  pass,  as  if  her  path  lay  through  all 
things.  "  "  For  as  often  as  she  betakes  herself 
upward  from  visible  phenomena,  or,  in  other  words, 
withdraws  herself  inward,  she  instantly  as  it  were 
disappears,  while  no  one  knows  what  has  become 
of  her,  or  whither  she  is  gone :  so  that  it  is  necessary 
to  take  science  as  a  guide  in  pursuing  her  steps.  " 

The  pursuing  the  inquiry  under  the  light  of  an 
end  or  final  cause  gives  wonderful  animation,  a 
sort  of  personality  to  the  whole  writing.  This 
book  announces  his  favorite  dogmas.  The  ancient 
doctrine  of  Hippocrates,  that  the  brain  is  a  gland ; 


110  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

and  of  Leucippus,  that  the  atom  may  be  known  by 
the  mass ;  or,  in  Plato,  the  macrocosm  by  the 
microcosm ;  and,  in  the  verses  of  Lucretius,  — 

Ossa  videlicet  e  pauxillis  atque  mimitis 
Ossibus  sic  et  de  pauxillis  atque  minutis 
Visceribus  viscus  gigni,  saiiguenque  creari 
Sanguinis  inter  se  multis  coeuntibus  guttis  ; 
Ex  aurique  putat  niicis  consistere  posse 
Aurum,  et  de  terris  terrain  concrescere  parvis  ; 
Ignibus  ex  igneis,  huinorem  Immoribus  esse. 

LIB.  I.  835. 

"  The  principle  of  all  things,  entrails  made 

Of  smallest  entrails  ;  bone,  of  smallest  bone  ; 

Blood,  of  small  sanguine  drops  reduced  to  one  ; 

Gold,  of  small  grains  ;  earth,  of  small  sands  compacted  ; 

Small  drops  to  water,  sparks  to  fire  contracted  :  " 

and  which  Malpighi  had  summed  in  his  maxim 
that  "  nature  exists  entire  in  leasts, "-  —  is  a  favorite 
thought  of  Swedenborg.  "  It  is  a  constant  law  of 
the  organic  body  that  large,  compound,  or  visible 
forms  exist  and  subsist  from  smaller,  simpler  and 
ultimately  from  invisible  forms,  which  act  similarly 
to  the  larger  ones,  but  more  perfectly  and  more 
universally ;  and  the  least  forms  so  perfectly  and 
universally  as  to  involve  an  idea  representative  of 
their  entire  universe.  "  The  unities  of  each  organ 
are  so  many  little  organs,  homogeneous  with  their 
compound :  the  unities  of  the  tongue  are  little 
tongues ;  those  of  the  stomach?/4it^e  stomachs ; 
* 


SWEDENBORG;   OR,    THE  MYSTIC.         Ill 

those  of  the  heart  are  little  hearts.  This  fruitful 
idea  furnishes  a  key  to  every  secret.  What  was 
too  small  for  the  eye  to  detect  was  read  by  the 
aggregates ;  what  was  too  large,  by  the  units. 
There  is  no  end  to  his  application  of  the  thought. 
"  Hunger  is  an  aggregate  of  very  many  little  hun 
gers,  or  losses  of  blood  by  the  little  veins  all  over 
the  body. "  It  is  a  key  to  his  theology  also.  "  Man 
is  a  kind  of  very  minute  heaven,  corresponding  to 
the  world  of  spirits  and  to  heaven.  Every  partic 
ular  idea  of  man,  and  every  affection,  yea,  every 
smallest  part  of  his  affection,  is  an  image  and 
effigy  of  him.  A  spirit  may  be  known  from  only 
a  single  thought.  God  is  the  grand  man.  " 

The  hardihood  and  thoroughness  of  his  study  of 
nature  required  a  theory  of  forms  also.  "  Forms 
ascend  in  order  from  the  lowest  to  the  highest. 
The  lowest  form  is  angular,  or  the  terrestrial  and 
corporeal.  The  second  and  next  higher  form  is 
the  circular,  which  is  also  called  the  perpetual- 
angular,  because  the  circumference  of  a  circle  is 
a  perpetual  angle.  The  form  above  this  is  the 
spiral,  parent  and  measure  of  circular  forms  :  its 
diameters  are  not  rectilinear,  but  variously  circular, 
and  have  a  spherical  surface  for  centre ;  therefore 
it  is  called  the  perpetual-circular.  The  form  above 
this  is  the  vortical,  or  perpetual-spiral :  .next,  the 
perpetual-vortical,  or  celestial :  last,  the  perpetual- 
celestial,  or  spiritual." 


112  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

Was  it  strange  that  a  genius  so  bold  should  take 
the  last  step  also,  should  conceive  that  he  might 
attain  the  science  of  all  sciences,  to  unlock  the 
meaning  of  the  world  ?  In  the  first  volume  of  the 
"  Animal  Kingdom,  "  he  broaches  the  subject  in  a 
remarkable  note :  — "  In  our  doctrine  of  Representa 
tions  and  Correspondences  we  shall  treat  of  both 
these  symbolical  and  typical  resemblances,  and  of 
the  astonishing  things  which  occur,  I  will  not  say 
in  the  living  body  only,  but  throughout  nature,  and 
which  correspond  so  entirely  to  supreme  and  spirit 
ual  things  that  one  would  swear  that  the  physical 
world  was  purely  symbolical  of  the  spiritual  world ; 
insomuch  that  if  we  choose  to  express  any  natural 
truth  in  physical  and  definite  vocal  terms,  and  to 
convert  these  terms  only  into  the  corresponding 
and  spiritual  terms,  we  shall  by  this  means  elicit  a 
spiritual  truth  or  theological  dogma,  in  place  of 
the  physical  truth  or  precept :  although  no  mortal 
would  have  predicted  that  any  thing  of  the  kind 
could  possibly  arise  by  bare  literal  transposition ; 
inasmuch  as  the  one  precept,  considered  separately 
from  the  other,  appears  to  have  absolutely  no 
relation  to  it.  I  intend  hereafter  to  communicate 
a  number  of  examples  of  such  correspondences, 
together  with  a  vocabulary  containing  the  terms  of 
spiritual  things,  as  well  as  of  the  physical  things 
for  which  they  are  to  be  substituted.  This  sym 
bolism  pervades  the  living  body.  " 


SWEDENBORG;  OR,   THE  MYSTIC.        113 

The  fact  thus  explicitly  stated  is  implied  in  all 
poetry,  in  allegory,  in  fable,  in  the  use  of  emblems 
and  in  the  structure  of  language.  Plato  knew  it, 
as  is  evident  from  his  twice  bisected  line  in  the 
sixth  book  of  the  Republic.  Lord  Bacon  had 
found  that  truth  and  nature  differed  only  as  seal 
and  print ;  and  he  instanced  some  physical  propo 
sitions,  with  their  translation  into  a  moral  or  po 
litical  sense.  Behmen,  and  all  mystics,  imply  this 
law  in  their  dark  riddle-writing.  The  poets,  in  as 
far  as  they  are  poets,  use  it ;  but  it  is  known  to 
them  only  as  the  magnet  was  known  for  ages,  as  a 
toy.  Swedenborg  first  put  the  fact  into  a  detached 
and  scientific  statement,  because  it  was  habitually 
present  to  him,  and  never  not  seen.  It  was  in 
volved,  as  we  explained  already,  in  the  doctrine  of 
identity  and  iteration,  because  the  mental  series 
exactly  tallies  with  the  material  series.  It  re 
quired  an  insight  that  could  rank  things  in  order 
and  series  ;  or  rather  it  required  such  rightness  of 
position  that  the  poles  of  the  eye  should  coincide 
with  the  axis  of  the  world.  The  earth  had  fed  its 
mankind  through  five  or  six  milleniums,  and  they 
had  sciences,  religions,  philosophies,  and  yet  had 
failed  to  see  the  correspondence  of  meaning  be 
tween  every  part  and  every  other  part.  And,  down 
to  this  hour,  literature  has  no  book  in  which  the 
symbolism  of  things  is  scientifically  opened.  One 


114  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

would  say  that  as  soon  as  men  had  the  first  hint 
that  every  sensible  object,  —  animal,  rock,  river,  air, 
—  nay,  space  and  time,  subsists  not  for  itself,  nor 
finally  to  a  material  end,  but  as  a  picture-language 
to  tell  another  story  of  beings  and  duties,  other 
science  would  be  put  by,  and  a  science  of  such 
grand  presage  would  absorb  all  faculties :  that  each 
man  would  ask  of  all  objects  what  they  mean  : 
Why  does  the  horizon  hold  me  fast,  with  my  joy 
and  grief,  in  this  centre  ?  Why  hear  I  the  same 
sense  from  countless  differing  voices,  and  read  one 
never  quite  expressed  fact  in  endless  picture-lan 
guage  ?  Yet  whether  it  be  that  these  things  will 
not  be  intellectually  learned,  or  that  many  centu 
ries  must  elaborate  and  compose  so  rare  and  opu 
lent  a  soul,  —  there  is  no  comet,  rock-stratum,  fos 
sil,  fish,  quadruped,  spider,  or  fungus,  that,  for 
itself,  does  not  interest  more  scholars  and  classi 
fiers  than  the  meaning  and  upshot  of  the  frame  of 
things. 

But  Swedenborg  was  not  content  with  the  culi 
nary  use  of  the  world.  In  his  fifty-fourth  year 
these  thoughts  held  him  fast,  and  his  profound 
mind  admitted  the  perilous  opinion,  too  frequent 
in  religious  history,  that  he  was  an  abnormal  per 
son,  to  whom  was  granted  the  privilege  of  convers 
ing  with  angels  and  spirits  ;  and  this  ecstasy  con 
nected  itself  with  just  this  office  of  explaining  the 


SWEDENBORG;   OR,   THE  MYSTIC.         115 

moral  import  of  the  sensible  world.  To  a  right 
perception,  at  once  broad  and  minute,  of  the  order 
of  nature,  he  added  the  comprehension  of  the 
moral  laws  in  their  widest  social  aspects ;  but  what 
ever  he  saw,  through  some  excessive  determination 
to  form  in  his  constitution,  he  saw  not  abstractly, 
but  in  pictures,  heard  it  in  dialogues,  constructed 
it  in  events.  When  he  attempted  to  announce  the 
law  most  sanely,  he  was  forced  to  couch  it  in  para 
ble. 

Modern  psychology  offers  no  similar  example  of 
a  deranged  balance.  The  principal  powers  contin 
ued  to  maintain  a  healthy  action,  and  to  a  reader 
who  can  make  due  allowance  in  the  report  for  the 
reporter's  peculiarities,  the  results  are  still  instruc 
tive,  and  a  more  striking  testimony  to  the  sublime 
laws  he  announced  than  any  that  balanced  dulness 
could  afford.  He  attempts  to  give  some  account 
of  the  modus  of  the  new  state,  affirming  that  "  his 
presence  in  the  spiritual  world  is  attended  with  a 
certain  separation,  but  only  as  to  the  intellectual 
part  of  his  mind,  not  as  to  the  will  part ;  "  and  he 
affirms  that  "he  sees,  with  the  internal  sight,  the 
things  that  are  in  another  life,  more  clearly  than 
he  sees  the  things  which  are  here  in  the  world." 

Having  adopted  the  belief  that  certain  books  of 
the  Old  and  New  Testaments  were  exact  allegories, 
or  written  in  the  angelic  and  ecstatic  mode,  he  em- 


116  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

ployed  his  remaining  years  in  extricating  from  the 
literal,  the  universal  sense.  He  had  borrowed  from 
Plato  the  fine  fable  of  "  a  most  ancient  people,  men 
better  than  we  and  dwelling  nigher  to  the  gods  ;  " 
and  Swedenborg  added  that  they  used  the  earth 
symbolically  ;  that  these,  when  they  saw  terrestrial 
objects,  did  not  think  at  all  about  them,  but  only 
about  those  which  they  signified.  The  correspoiid- 
ence  between  thoughts  and  things  henceforward  oc 
cupied  him.  "The  very  organic  form  resembles 
the  end  inscribed  011  it."  A  man  is  in  general  and 
in  particular  an  organized  justice  or  injustice,  sel 
fishness  or  gratitude.  And  the  cause  of  this  har 
mony  he  assigned  in  the  Arcana :  "  The  reason 
why  all  and  single  things,  in  the  heavens  and  on 
earth,  are  representative,  is  because  they  exist  from 
an  influx  of  the  Lord,  through  heaven."  This  de 
sign  of  exhibiting  such  correspondences,  which,  if 
adequately  executed^  would_be_  the_poem  of  the 
world,  in  which  all  history  and  science  would  play 
an  essential  part,  was  narrowed  and  defeated  by 
the  exclusively  theologic  direction  which  his  in 
quiries  took.  His  perception  of  nature  is  not  hu 
man  and  universal,  but  is  mystical  and  Hebraic. 
He  fastens  each  natural  object  to  a  theologic  no 
tion  ;  —  a  horse  signifies  carnal  understanding  ;  a 
tree,  perception  ;  the  moon,  faith  ;  a  cat  means 
this ;  an  ostrich  that ;  an  artichoke  this  other ;  — 


SWEDENBORG;   OR,   THE  MYSTIC.         117 

and  poorly  tethers  every  symbol  to  a  several  ec 
clesiastic  sense.  The  slippery  Proteus  is  not  so 
easily  caught.  In  nature,  each  individual  symbol 
plays  innumerable  parts,  as  each  particle  of  matter 
circulates  in  turn  through  every  system.  The  cen 
tral  identity  enables  any  one  symbol  to  express  suc 
cessively  all  the  qualities  and  shades  of  real  being. 
In  the  transmission  of  the  heavenly  waters,  every 
hose  fits  every  hydrant.  Nature  avenges  herself 
speedily  on  the  hard  pedantry  that  would  chain  her 
waves.  She  is  no  literalist.  Every  thing  must  be 
taken  genially,  and  we  must  be  at  the  top  of  our 
condition  to  understand  any  thing  rightly. 

His  theological  bias  thus  fatally  narrowed  his 
interpretation  of  nature,  and  the  dictionary  of  sym 
bols  is  yet  to  be  written.  But  the  interpreter 
whom  mankind  must  still  expect,  will  find  no  pre 
decessor  who  has  approached  so  near  to  the  true 
problem. 

Swedenborg  styles  himself  in  the  title-page  of 
his  books,  "  Servant  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  ;  " 
and  by  force  of  intellect,  and  in  effect,  he  is  the 
last  Father  in  the  Church,  and  is  not  likely  to  have 
a  successor.  No  wonder  that  his  depth  of  ethical 
wisdom  should  give  him  influence  as  a  teacher. 
To  the  withered  traditional  church,  yielding  dry 
catechisms,  he  let  in  nature  again,  and  the  worship 
per,  escaping  from  the  vestry  of  verbs  and  texts,  is 


118  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

surprised  to  find  himself  a  party  to  the  whole  of 
his  religion.  His  religion  thinks  for  him  and  is  of 
universal  application.  He  turns  it  on  every  side  ; 
it  fits  every  part  of  life,  interprets  and  dignifies 
every  circumstance.  Instead  of  a  religion  which 
visited  him  diplomatically  three  or  four  times,  — 
when  he  was  born,  when  he  married,  when  he  fell 
sick  and  when  he  died,  and,  for  the  rest,  never  in 
terfered  with  him,  —  here  was  a  teaching  which 
accompanied  him  all  day,  accompanied  him  even 
into  sleep  and  dreams ;  into  his  thinking,  and 
showed  him  through  what  a  long  ancestry  his 
thoughts  descend  ;  into  society,  and  showed  by 
what  affinities  he  was  girt  to  his  equals  and  his 
counterparts  ;  into  natural  objects,  and  showed 
their  origin  and  meaning,  what  are  friendly,  and 
what  are  beautiful;  and  opened  the  future  world 
by  indicating  the  continuity  of  the  same  laws. 
His  disciples  allege  that  their  intellect  is  invigor 
ated  by  the  study  of  his  books. 

There  is  no  such  problem  for  criticism  as  his 
theological  writings,  their  merits  are  so  command 
ing,  yet  such  grave  deductions  must  be  made. 
Their  immense  and  sandy  diffuseness  is  like  the 
prairie  or  the  desert,  and  their  incongruities  are 
like  the  last  deliration.  He  is  superfluously  explan 
atory,  and  his  feeling  of  the  ignorance  of  men, 
strangely  exaggerated-  Men  take  truths  of  thic 


c* 

r* 

SWEDENBORG;   OR,   THE  MYSTIC. 

nature  very  fast.  Yet  he  abounds  in  assertions, 
is  a  rich  discoverer,  and  of  things  which  most  im 
port  us  to  know.  His  thought  dwells  in  essential 
resemblances,  like  the  resemblance  of  a  house  to 
the  man  who  built  it.  He  saw  things  in  their  law, 
in  likeness  of  function,  not  of  structure.  There  is 
an  invariable  method  and  order  in  his  delivery  of 
his  truth,  the  habitual  proceeding  of  the  mind  from 
inmost  to  outmost.  What  earnestness  and  weight- 
mess,  —  his  eye  never  roving,  without  one  swell  of 
vanity,  or  one  look  to  self  in  any  common  form  of 
literary  pride !  a  theoretic  or  speculative  man,  but 
whom  no  practical  man  in  the  universe  could  affect 
to  scorn.  Plato  is  a  gownsman ;  his  garment, 
though  of  purple,  and  almost  sky-woven,  is  an 
academic  robe  and  hinders  action  with  its  volumi 
nous  folds.  But  this  mystic  is  awful  to  Cesar. 
Lycurgus  himself  would  bow. 

The  moral  insight  of  Swedenborg,  the  correction 
of  popular  errors,  the  announcement  of  ethical 
laws,  take  him  out  of  comparison  with  any  other 
modern  writer  and  entitle  him  to  a  place,  vacant 
for  some  ages,  among  the  lawgivers  of  mankind. 
That  slow  but  commanding  influence  which  he  has 
acquired,  like  that  of  other  religious  geniuses,  must 
be  excessive  also,  and  have  its  tides,  before  it  sub 
sides  into  a  permanent  amount.  Of  course  what  is 
real  and  universal  cannot  be  confined  to  the  circle 


120  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

of  those  who  sympathize  strictly  with  his  genius, 
but  will  pass  forth  into  the  common  stock  of  wise 
and  just  thinking.  The  world  has  a  sure  chemistry, 
by  which  it  extracts  what  is  excellent  in  its  chil 
dren  and  lets  fall  the  infirmities  and  limitations  of 
the  grandest  mind. 

That  metempsychosis  which  is  familiar  in  the 
old  mythology  of  the  Greeks,  collected  in  Ovid 
and  in  the  Indian  Transmigration,  and  is  there 
objective,  or  really  takes  place  in  bodies  by  alien 
will, —  in  Swedenborg's  mind  has  a  more  philo 
sophic  character.  It  is  subjective,  or  depends 
entirely  upon  the  thought  of  the  person.  All 
things  in  the  universe  arrange  themselves  to  each 
person  anew,  according  to  his  ruling  love.  Man 
is  such  as  his  affection  and  thought  are.  Man  is 
man  by  virtue  of  willing,  not  by  virtue  of  know 
ing  and  understanding. As — he— isf__go__hesees. 

The  marriages  of  the  world  are  broken  up.  In 
teriors  associate  all  in  the  spiritual  world.  What 
ever  the  angels  looked  upon  was  to  them  celestial. 
Each  Satan  appears  to  himself  a  man ;  to  those 
as  bad  as  he,  a  comely  man ;  to  the  purified,  a 
heap  of  carrion.  Nothing  can  resist  states:  every 
thing  gravitates  :  like  will  to  like :  what  we  call 
poetic  justice  takes  effect  on  the  spot.  We  have 
come  into  a  world  which  is  a  living  poem.  Every 
tiling  is  as  I  am.  Bird  and  beast  is  not  bird  and 


SWEDENBORG;   OR,   THE  MYSTIC.         121 

beast,  but  emanation  and  effluvia  of  the  minds 
and  wills  of  men  there  present.  Every  one  makes 
his  own  house  and  state.  The  ghosts  are  tor 
mented  with  the  fear  of  death  and  cannot  remem 
ber  that  they  have  died.  They  who  are  in  evil 
and  falsehood  are  afraid  of  all  others.  Such  as 
have  deprived  themselves  of  charity,  wander  and 
flee:  the  societies  which  they  approach  discover 
their  quality  and  drive  them  away.  The  covet 
ous  seem  to  themselves  to  be  abiding  in  cells 
where  their  money  is  deposited,  and  these  to  be 
infested  with  mice.  They  who  place  merit  in 
£ood  works  seem  to  themselves  to  cut  wood.  "  I 

o 

asked  such,  if  they  were  not  wearied?  They  re 
plied,  that  they  have  not  yet  done  work  enough 
to  merit  heaven." 

He  delivers  golden  sayings  which  express  with 
singular  beauty  the  ethical  laws  ;  as  when  he 
uttered  that  famed  sentence,  that  "  In  heaven  the 
angels  are  advancing  continually  to  the  spring 
time  of  their  youth,  so  that  the  oldest  angel  ap 
pears  the  youngest : "  "  The  more  angels,  the 
more  room :  "  "  The  perfection  of  man  is  the  love 
of  use  :  "  "  Man,  in  his  perfect  form,  is  heaven  :  " 
"  What  is  from  Him,  is  Him  :  "  "  Ends  always 
ascend  as  nature  descends."  And  the  truly  poetic 
account  of  the  writing  in  the  inmost  heaven,  which 
as  it  consists  of  inflexions  according  to  the  form 


122  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

of  heaven,  can  be  read  without  instruction.  He 
almost  justifies  his  claim  to  preternatural  vision, 
by  strange  insights  of  the  structure  of  the  human 
body  and  mind.  "It  is  never  permitted  to  any 
one,  in  heaven,  to  stand  behind  another  and  look 
at  the  back  of  his  head ;  for  then  the  influx  which 
is  from  the  Lord  is  disturbed."  The  angels,  from 
the  sound  of  the  voice,  know  a  man's  love ;  from 
the  articulation  of  the  sound,  his  wisdom ;  and 
from  the  sense  of  the  words,  his  science. 

In  the  "  Conjugal  Love,"  he  has  unfolded  the 
science  of  marriage.  Of  this  book  one  would  say 
that  with  the  highest  elements  it  has  failed  of 
success.  It  came  near  to  be  the  Hymn  of  Love, 
which  Plato  attempted  in  the  "  Banquet ;  "  the 
love,  which,  Dante  says,  Casella  sang  among  the 
angels  in  Paradise ;  and  which,  as  rightly  cele 
brated,  in  its  genesis,  fruition  and  effect,  might 
well  entrance  the  souls,  as  it  would  lay  open  the 
genesis  of  all  institutions,  customs  and  manners. 
The  book  had  been  grand  if  the  Hebraism  had 
been  omitted  and  the  law  stated  without  Gothi- 
cism,  as  ethics,  and  with  that  scope  for  ascension 
of  state  which  the  nature  of  things  requires.  It 
is  a  fine  Platonic  development  of  the  science  of 
marriage ;  teaching  that  sex  is  universal,  and 
not  local;  virility  in  the  male  qualifying  every 
organ,  act,  and  thought;  and  the  feminine  in 


SWEDENBORG;   OR,   THE  MYSTIC.        123 

woman.  Therefore  in  the  real  or  spiritual  world 
the  nuptial  union  is  not  momentary,  but  inces 
sant  and  total ;  and  chastity  not  a  local,  but  a 
universal  virtue ;  unchastity  being  discovered  as 
much  in  the  trading,  or  planting,  or  speaking,  or 
philosophizing,  as  in  generation ;  and  that,  though 
the  virgins  he  saw  in  heaven  were  beautiful,  the 
wives  were  incomparably  more  beautiful,  and  went 
on  increasing  in  beauty  evermore. 

Yet  Swedenborg,  after  his  mode,  pinned  his 
theory  to  a  temporary  form.  He  exaggerates  the 
circumstance  of  marriage ;  and  though  he  finds 
false  marriages  on  earth,  fancies  a  wiser  choice  in 
heaven.  But  of  progressive  souls,  all  loves  andJ 
friendships  are  momentary.  Do  you  love  me  ?} 
means,  Do  you  see  the  same  truth?  If  you  do, 
we  are  happy  with  the  same  happiness :  but  pres 
ently  one  of  us  passes  into  the  perception  of  new 
truth ;  —  we  are  divorced,  and  no  tension  in  na 
ture  can  hold  us  to  each  other.  I  know  how  deli 
cious  is  this  cup  of  love, —  I  existing  for  you,  you 
existing  for  me ;  but  it  is  a  child's  clinging  to  his 
toy ;  an  attempt  to  eternize  the  fireside  and  nup 
tial  chamber ;  to  keep  the  picture-alphabet  through 
which  our  first  lessons  are  prettily  conveyed. 
The  Eden  of  God  is  bare  and  grand :  like  the  out 
door  landscape  remembered  from  the  evening  fire 
side,  it  seems  cold  and  desolate  whilst  you  cower 


124  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

over  the   coals,  but   once   abroad   again,  we   pity 
those  who  can  forego  the  magnificence  of   nature 
\  for   candle-light    and   cards.      Perhaps    the    true 

\  subject  of  the  "  Conjugal  Love  "  is  Conversation, 
whose  laws  are  profoundly  set  forth.  It  is  false, 
if  literally  applied  to  marriage.  For  God  is  the 
bride  or  bridegroom  of  the  soul.  Heaven  is  not 
the  pairing  of  two,  but  the  communion  of  all  souls. 
We  meet,  and  dwell  an  instant  under  the  temple 
of  one  thought,  and  part,  as  though  we  parted 
not,  to  join  another  thought  in  other  fellowships 
of  joy.  So  far  from  there  being  anything  divine 
in  the  low  and  proprietary  sense  of  Do  you  love 
me?  it  is  only  when  you  leave  and  lose  me  by 
casting  yourself  on  a  sentiment  which  is  higher 
than  both  of  us,  that  I  draw  near  and  find  myself 
at  your  side ;  and  I  am  repelled  if  you  fix  your 
eye  on  me  and  demand  love.  In  fact,  in  the  spir 
itual  world  we  change  sexes  every  moment.  You 
love  the  worth  in  me  ;  then  I  am  your  husband : 
but  it  is  not  me,  but  the  worth,  that  fixes  the 
love ;  and  that  worth  is  a  drop  of  the  ocean  of 
worth  that  is  beyond  me.  Meantime  I  adore  the 
greater  worth  in  another,  and  so  become  his  wife. 
He  aspires  to  a  higher  worth  in  another  spirit, 
and  is  wife  or  receiver  of  that  influence. 

Whether  from  a  self -inquisitorial  habit  that  he 


SWEDENBORG;   OR,   THE  MYSTIC.         125 

grew  into  from  jealousy  of  the  sins  to  which  men 
of  thought  are  liable,  he  has  acquired,  in  disentan 
gling  and  demonstrating  that  particular  form  of 
moral  disease,  an  acumen  which  no  conscience  can 
resist.  I  refer  to  his  feeling  of  the  profanation  of 
thinking  to  what  is  good,  "  from  scientifics.  "  To 
reason  about  faith,  is  to  doubt  and  deny."  He 
was  painfully  alive  to  the  difference  between  know 
ing  and  doing,  and  this  sensibility  is  incessantly 
expressed.  Philosophers  are,  therefore,  vipers, 
cockatrices,  asps,  hemorrhoids,  presters,  and  flying 
serpents;  literary  men  are  conjurors  and  charla 
tans. 

But  this  topic  suggests  a  sad  afterthought,  that 
here  we  find  the  seat  of  his  own  pain.  Possibly 
Swedenborg  paid  the  penalty  of  introverted  fac 
ulties.  Success,  or  a  fortunate  genius,  seems  to 
depend  on  a  happy  adjustment  of  heart  and  brain ; 
on  a  due  proportion,  hard  to  hit,  of  moral  and 
mental  power,  which  perhaps  obeys  the  law  of 
those  chemical  ratios  which  make  a  proportion  in 
volumes  necessary  to  combination,  as  when  gases 
will  combine  in  certain  fixed  rates,  but  not  at  any 
rate.  It  is  hard  to  carry  a  full  cup  ;  and  this  man, 
profusely  endowed  in  heart  and  mind,  early  fell 
into  dangerous  discord  with  himself.  In  his  Ani 
mal  Kingdom  he  surprised  us  by  declaring  that  he 
loved  analysis,  and  not  synthesis ;  and  now,  after 


126  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

his  fiftieth  year,  he  falls  into  jealousy  of  his  intel 
lect  ;  and  though  aware  that  truth  is  not  solitary 
nor  is  goodness  solitary,  but  both  must  ever  mix 
and  marry,  he  makes  war  on  his  mind,  takes  the 
part  of  the  conscience  against  it,  and,  on  all  occa 
sions,  traduces  and  blasphemes  it.  The  violence 
is  instantly  avenged.  Beauty  is  disgraced,  love 
is  unlovely,  when  truth,  the  half  part  of  heaven, 
is  denied,  as  much  as  when  a  bitterness  in  men 
of  talent  leads  to  satire  and  destroys  the  judgment. 
He  is  wise,  but  wise  in  his  own  despite.  There  is 
an  air  of  infinite  grief  and  the  sound  of  wailing  all 
over  and  through  this  lurid  universe.  A  vampyre 
sits  in  the  seat  of  the  prophet  and  turns  with 
gloomy  appetite  to  the  images  of  pain.  Indeed,  a 
bird  does  not  more  readily  weave  its  nest,  or  a 
mole  bore  into  the  ground,  than  this  seer  of  the 
souls  substructs  a  new  hell  and  pit,  each  more 
abominable  than  the  last,  round  every  new  crew 
of  offenders.  He  was  let  down  through  a  column 
that  seemed  of  brass,  but  it  was  formed  of  angelic 
spirits,  that  he  might  descend  safely  amongst  the 
unhappy,  and  witness  the  vastation  of  souls  and 
hear  there,  for  a  long  continuance,  their  lamenta 
tions  :  he  saw  their  tormentors,  who  increase  and 
strain  pangs  to  infinity ;  he  saw  the  hell  of  the 
jugglers,  the  hell  of  the  assassins,  the  hell  of  the 
lascivious ;  the  hell  of  robbers,  who  kill  and  boil 


SWEDENBORG;  OR,   TEE  MYSTIC.         127 

men ;  the  infernal  tun  of  the  deceitful ;  the  excre- 
mentitious  hells  ;  the  hell  of  the  revengeful,  whose 
faces  resembled  a  round,  broad  cake,  and  their 
arms  rotate  like  a  wheel.  Except  Rabelais  and 
Dean  Swift  nobody  ever  had  such  science  of  filth 
and  corruption.  , 

These  books  should  be  used  with  caution.  It  is 
dangerous  to  sculpture  these  evanescing  images  of 
thought.  True  in  transition,  they  become  false  if 
fixed.  It'  requires,  for  his  just  apprehension,  al 
most  a  genius  equal  to  his  own.  But  when  his 
visions  become  the  stereotyped  language  of  multi 
tudes  of  persons  of  all  degrees  of  age  and  capacity, 
they  are  perverted.  The  wise  people  of  the  Greek 
race  were  accustomed  to  lead  the  most  intelligent 
and  virtuous  young  men,  as  part  of  their  education, 
through  the  Eleusinian  mysteries,  wherein,  with 
much  pomp  and  graduation,  the  highest  truths 
known  to  ancient  wisdom  were  taught.  An  ar 
dent  and  contemplative  young  man,  at  eighteen  or 
twenty  years,  might  read  once  these  books  of 
Swedenborg,  these  mysteries  of  love  and  conscience, 
and  then  throw  them  aside  for  ever.  Genius  is 
ever  haunted  by  similar  dreams,  when  the  hells 
and  the  heavens  are  opened  to  it.  But  these  pic 
tures  are  to  be  held  as  mystical,  that  is,  as  a  quite 
arbitrary  and  accidental  picture  of  the  truth,  —  not 
as  the  truth.  Any  other  symbol  would  be  as  good ; 
then  this  is  safely  seen. 


128  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

'  Swedenborg's  system  of  the  world  wants  central 
spontaneity;  it  is  dynamic,  not  vital,  and  lacks 
power  to  generate  life,  There  is  no  individual  in 
it.  The  universe  is  a  gigantic  crystal,  all  whose 
atoms  and  laminae  lie  in  uninterrupted  order  and 
with  unbroken  unity,  but  cold  and  still.  What 
seems  an  individual  and  a  will,  is  none.  There  is 
an  immense  chain  of  intermediation,  extending  from 
centre  to  extremes,  which  bereaves  every  agency 
of  all  freedom  and  character.  The  universe,  in  his 
poem,  suffers  under  a  magnetic  sleep,  and  only  re 
flects  the  mind  of  the  magnetizer.  Every  thought 
comes  into  each  mind  by  influence  from  a  society 
of  spirits  that  surround  it,  and  into  these  from  a 
higher  society,  and  so  on.  All  his  types  mean  the 
same  few  things.  All  his  figures  speak  one  speech. 
All  his  interlocutors  Swedenborgize.  Be  they  who 
they  may,  to  this  complexion  must  they  come  at 
last.  This  Charon  ferries  them  all  over  in  his  boat ; 
kings,  counsellors,  cavaliers,  doctors,  Sir  Isaac  New 
ton,  Sir  Hans  Sloane,  King  George  II.,  Mahomet, 
or  whomsoever,  and  all  gather  one  grimness  of  hue 
and  style.  Only  when  Cicero  comes  by,  our  gentle 
seer  sticks  a  little  at  saying  he  talked  with  Cicero, 
and  with  a  touch  of  human  relenting  remarks,  "  one 
whom  it  was  given  me  to  believe  was  Cicero  "  ;  and 
when  the  soi  disant  Roman  opens  his  mouth, 
Rome  and  eloquence  have  ebbed  away,  —  it  is  plain 


SWEDENBORG;   OR,   THE  MYSTIC.        129 

theologic  Swedenborg  like  the  rest.  His^  heavens 
and  hells  are  dull ;  fault  of  want  of  individualism. 
The  thousand  -  fold  relation  of  men  is  not  there. 
The  interest  that  attaches  in  nature  to  each  man, 
because  he  is  right  by  his  wrong,  and  wrong  by  his 
right ;  because  he  defies  all  dogmatizing  and  classi 
fication,  so  many  allowances  and  contingences  and 
futurities  are  to  be  taken  into  account;  strong  by 
his  vices,  often  paralyzed  by  his  virtues ;  —  sinks 
into  entire  sympathy  with  his  society.  This  want 
reacts  to  the  centre  of  the  system.  Though  the 
agency  of  "the  Lord"  is  in  every  line  referred  to 
by  name,  it  never  becomes  alive.  There  is  no  lustre 
in  that  eye  which  gazes  from  the  centre  and  which 
should  vivify  the  immense  dependency  of  beings. 

The  vice  of  Swedenborg's  mind  is  its  theologic 
determination.  Nothing  with  him  has  the  liberal 
ity  of  universal  wisdom,  but  we  are  always  in  a 
church.  That  Hebrew  muse,  which  taught  the  lore 
of  right  and  wrong  to  men,  had  the  same  excess  of 
influence  for  him  it  has  had  for  the  nations.  The 
mode,  as  well  as  the  essence,  was  sacred.  Palestine 
is  ever  the  more  valuable  as  a  chapter  in  universal 
history,  and  ever  the  less  an  available  element  in 
education.  /The  genius  of  Swedenborg,  largest  of 
all  modern1  souls  in  this  department  of  thought, 
wasted  itself  in  the  endeavor  to  reanimate  and  con 
serve  what  had  already  arrived  at  its  natural  term, 

VOL.   IV.  9 


130  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

and,  in  the  great  secular  Providence,  was  retiring 
from  its  prominence,  before  Western  modes  of 
thought  and  expression.  J  Swedenborg  and  Behmen 
both  failed  by  attaching  themselves  to  the  Christian 
symbol,  instead  of  to  the  moral  sentiment,  which 
carries  innumerable  Christianities,  humanities,  di 
vinities,  in  its  bosom. 

The  excess  of  influence  shows  itself  in  the  incon 
gruous  importation  of  a  foreign  rhetoric.     '  What 
have  I  to  do '  asks  the  impatient  reader,  i  with  jas 
per  and  sardonyx,  beryl  and  chalcedony ;  what  with 
arks  and  passovers,  ephahs  and  ephods  ;  \vhat  with 
lepers  and  emerods  ;  what  with  heave-offerings  and 
unleavened  bread,  chariots  of  fire,  dragons  crowned 
and   horned,  behemoth  and    unicorn?     Good    for 
Orientals,  these  are  nothing  to  me.    The  more  learn 
ing  you  bring  to  explain  them,  the  more  glaring 
the  impertinence.     The  more  coherent  and  elabo 
rate  the  system,  the  less  I  like  it.     I  say,  with  the 
Spartan,  "  Why  do  you  speak  so  much  to  the  pur 
pose,   of  that  which  is  nothing  to  the  purpose?" 
My  learning  is  such  as  God  gave  me  in  my  birth 
and  habit,  in  the  delight  and  study  of  my  eyes  and 
not  of  another  man's.     Of  all  absurdities,  this  of 
some  foreigner  proposing  to  take  away  my  rhetoric 
and  substitute  his  own,  and  amuse  me  with  peli 
can  and  stork,  instead  of  thrush  and  robin  ;  palm- 
trees  and  shittim  -  wood,   instead  of  sassafras  and 
hickory,  —  seems  the  most  needless.' 


SWEDENBORG;   OR,   THE  MYSTIC.         131 

Locke  said,  "  God,  when  lie  makes  the  prophet,  u 
does  not  unmake  the  man."  Swedenborg's  history 
points  the  remark.  The  parish  disputes  in  the 
Swedish  church  between  the  friends  and  foes  of 
Luther  and  Melancthon,  concerning  "  faith  alone  " 
and  "  works  alone,"  intrude  themselves  into  his 
speculations  upon  the  economy  of  the  universe,  and 
of  the  celestial  societies.  The  Lutheran  bishop's 
son,  for  whom  the  heavens  are  opened,  so  that  he 
sees  with  eyes  and  in  the  richest  symbolic  forms 
the  awful  truth  of  things,  and  utters  again  in  his 
books,  as  under  a  heavenly  mandate,  the  indisputa 
ble  secrets  of  moral  nature,  —  with  all  these  grand 
eurs  resting  upon  him,  remains  the  Lutheran  bish 
op's  son ;  his  judgments  are  those  of  a  Swedish 
polemic,  and  his  vast  enlargements  purchased  by 
adamantine  limitations.  He  carries  his  controver 
sial  memory  with  him  in  his  visits  to  the  souls.  He 
is  like  Michel  Angelo,  who,  in  his  frescoes,  put  the 
cardinal  who  had  offended  him  to  roast  under  a 
mountain  of  devils ;  or  like  Dante,  who  avenged,  in 
vindictive  melodies,  all  his  private  wrongs ;  or  per 
haps  still  more  like  Montaigne's  parish  priest,  who, 
if  a  hail-storm  passes  over  the  village,  thinks  the 
day  of  doom  is  come,  and  the  cannibals  already 
have  got  the  pip.  Swedenborg  confounds  us  not 
less  with  the  pains  of  Melancthon  and  Luther  and 
Wolfius,  and  his  own  books,  which  he  advertises 
among  the  angels. 


132  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

Under  the  same  theologic  cramp,  many  of  his 
dogmas  are  bound.  His  cardinal  position  in 
morals  is  that  evils  should  be  shunned  as  sins. 
But  he  does  not  know  what  evil  is,  or  what  good 
is,  who  thinks  any  ground  remains  to  be  occupied, 
after  saying  that  evil  is  to  be  shunned  as  evil.  I 
doubt  not  he  was  led  by  the  desire  to  insert  the 
element  of  personality  of  Deity.  But  nothing  is 
added.  One  man,  you  say,  dreads  erysipelas,  — 
show  him  that  this  dread  is  evil :  or,  one  dreads 
hell,  —  show  him  that  dread  is  evil.  He  who 
loves  goodness,  harbors  angels,  reveres  reverence 
and  lives  with  God.  The  less  we  have  to  do  with 
our  sins  the  better.  No  man  can  afford  to  waste 
his  moments  in  compunctions.  "  That  is  active 
duty, "  say  the  Hindoos,  "  which  is  not  for  our 
bondage ;  that  is  knowledge,  which  is  for  our  lib 
eration  :  all  other  duty  is  good  only  unto  weari 
ness." 

Another  dogma,  growing  out  of  this  pernicious 
theologic  limitation,  is  his  Inferno.  Swedenborg 
has  devils.  Evil,  according  to  old  philosophers, 
is  good  in  the  making.  That  pure  malignity  can 
exist  is  the  extreme  proposition  of  unbelief.  It 
is  not  to  be  entertained  by  a  rational  agent ;  it  is 
atheism ;  it  is  the  last  profanation.  Euripides 
rightly  said,  — 

"  Goodness  and  being  in  the  gods  are  one  ; 
He  who  imputes  ill  to  them  makes  them  none." 


SWEDENBOEG;   OR,   THE  MYSTIC.         133 

To  what  a  painful  perversion  had  Gothic  theology 
arrived,  that  Swedenborg  admitted  no  conversion 
for  evil  spirits  !  But  the  divine  effort  is  never 
relaxed  ;  the  carrion  in  the  sun  will  convert  itself 
to  grass  and  flowers  ;  and  man,  though  in  brothels, 
or  jails,  or  on  gibbets,  is  on  his  way  to  all  that  is 
good  and  true.  Burns,  with  the  wild  humor  of  his 
apostrophe  to  poor  "  auld  Nickie  Ben," 

"  O  wad  ye  tak  a  thought,  and  mend  !  " 

has  the  advantage  of  the  vindictive  theologian. 
Every  thing  is  superficial  and  perishes  but  love 
and  truth  only.  The  largest  is  always  the  truest 
sentiment,  and  we  feel  the  more  generous  spirit 
of  the  Indian  Vishnu,  —  "I  am  the  same  to  all 
mankind.  There  is  not  one  who  is  worthy  of  my 
love  or  hatred.  They  who  serve  me  with  adora 
tion, —  I  am  in  them,  and  they  in  me.  If  one 
whose  ways  are  altogether  evil  serve  me  alone,  he 
is  as  respectable  as  the  just  man ;  he  is  altogether 
well  employed  ;  he  soon  becorneth  of  a  virtuous 
spirit  and  obtaineth  eternal  happiness." 

For  the  anomalous  pretension  of  Revelations 
of  the  other  world,  —  only  his  probity  and  genius 
can  entitle  it  to  any  serious  regard.  His  revela 
tions  destroy  their  credit  by  running  into  detail. 
If  a  man  say  that  the  Holy  Ghost  has  informed 
him  that  the  Last  Judgment  (or  the  last  of  the 


134  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

judgments),  took  place  in  1757 ;  or  that  the 
Dutch,  in  the  other  world,  live  in  a  heaven  by 
themselves,  and  the  English  in  a  lica^eij  by  them 
selves;  I  reply  that  the  Spirit  which  is  hoty  is 
reserved,  taciturn,  and  deals  in  laws.  The  rumors 
of  ghosts  and  hobgoblins  gossip  and  tell  fortunes. 
The  teachings  of  the  high  Spirit  a£e>  abstemious, 
and,  in  regard  to  particulars,  negative.  Socrates's 
Genius  did  not  advise  him  to  act  or  to  find,  but  if 
he  purposed  to  do  somewhat  not  advantageous,  it 
dissuaded  him.  "What  God  is,"  he  said,  "I  know 
not ;  what  he  is  not,  I  know."  The  Hindoos  have 
denominated  the  Supreme  Being,  the  "  Internal 
Check."  The  illuminated  Quakers  explained  their 
Light,  not  as  somewhat  which  leads  to  any  action, 
but  it  appears  as  an  obstruction  to  any  thing  unfit. 
But  the  right  examples  are  private  experiences, 
which  are  absolutely  at  one  on  this  point.  Strictly 
speaking,  Swedenborg's  revelation  is  a  confounding 
of  planes,  —  a  capital  offence  in  so  learned  a  cate- 
gorist.  This  is  to  carry  the  law  of  surface  into 
the  plane  of  substance,  to  carry  individualism  and 
its  fopperies  into  the  realm  of  essences  and  gen 
erals,  —  which  is  dislocation  and  chaos. 

The  secret  of  heaven  is  kept  from  age  to  age. 
No  imprudent,,  no.,  sociable  angel  ever  dropt  an 
early  syllable  to  answer  the  longings  of  saints,  the 
fears  of  mortals.  We  should  have  listened  on  our 


SWEDENBORG;   OR,    THE  MYSTIC.         135 

knees  to  any  favorite,  who,  by  stricter  obedience, 
had  brought  his  thoughts  into  parallelism  with  the 
celestial  currents  and  could  hint  to  human  ears  the 
scenery  and  circumstance  of  the  newly  parted  soul. 
But  it  is  certain  that  it  must  tally  with  what  is  best 
in  nature.  It  must  not  be  inferior  in  tone  to  the 
already  known  works  of  the  artist  who  sculptures 
the  globes  of  the  firmament  and  writes  the  moral 
law.  It  must  be  fresher  than  rainbows,  stabler 
than  mountains,  agreeing  with  flowers,  with  tides 
and  tne  rising  and  setting  of  autumnal  stars. 
Melodious  poets  shall  be  hoarse  as  street  ballads 
when  once  the  penetrating  key-note  of  nature  and 
spirit  is  sounded,  —  the  earth-beat,  sea-beat,  heart 
beat,  which  makes  the  tune  to  which  the  sun  rolls, 
and  the  globule  of  blood,  and  the  sap  of  trees. 

In  this  mood  we  hear  the  rumor  that  the  seer 
has  arrived,  and  his  tale  is  told.  But  there  is  no 
beauty,  no  heaven  :  for  angels,  goblins.  The  sad 
muse  loves  night  and  death  and  the  pit.  His  In 
ferno  is  mesmeric.  His  spiritual  world  bears  the 
same  relation  to  the  generosities  and  joys  of  truth 
of  which  human  souls  have  already  made  us  cogni 
zant,  as  a  man's  bad  dreams  bear  to  his  ideal  life. 
It  is  indeed  very  like,  in  its  endless  power  of  lurid 
pictures,  to  the  phenomena  of  dreaming,  which 
nightly  turns  many  an  honest  gentleman,  benevo 
lent  but  dyspeptic,  into  a  wretch,  skulking  like  a 


136  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

dog  about  the  outer  yards  and  kennels  of  creation. 
When  he  mounts  into  the  heaven,  I  do  not  hear 
its  language.  ,  A  man  should  not  tell  me  that  he 
has  walked  among  the  angels  ;  his  proof  is  that  his 
eloquence  makes  me  one.  »  Shall  the  archangels  be 
less  majestic  and  sweet  than  the  figures  that  have 
actually  walked  the  earth?  These  angels  that 
Swedenborg  paints  give  us  no  very  high  idea  of 
their  discipline  and  culture  :  they  are  all  country 
parsons  :  their  heaven  is  a  fete  cliampetre,  an 
evangelical  picnic,  or  French  distribution  of  prizes 
to  virtuous  peasants.  Strange,  scholastic,  didactic, 
passionless,  bloodless  man,  who  denotes  classes  of 
souls  as  a  botanist  disposes  of  a  carex,  and  visits 
doleful  hells  as  a  stratum  of  chalk  or  hornblende  ! 
He  has  no  sympathy.  He  goes  up  and  down  the 
world  of  men,  a  modern  Rhadamaiithus  in  gold- 
headed  cane  and  peruke,  and  with  nonchalance 
and  the  air  of  a  referee,  distributes  souls.  The 
warm,  many-weathered,  passionate-peopled  world 
is  to  him  a  grammar  of  hieroglyphs,  or  an  emblem 
atic  freemason's  procession.  How  different  is 
Jacob  Behmen !  he  is  tremulous  with  emotion  and 
listens  awe-struck,  with  the  gentlest  humanity,  to 
the  Teacher  whose  lessons  he  conveys ;  and  when 
he  asserts  that,  "  in  some  sort,  love  is  greater  than 
God,"  his  heart  beats  so  high  that  the  thumping 
against  his  leathern  coat  is  audible  across  the  cen- 


SWEDENDORG;   OR,   THE  MYSTIC.        137 

turies.  'T  is  a  great  difference.  Behmen  is  health 
ily  and  beautifully  wise,  notwithstanding  the  mys 
tical  narrowness  and  incommimicableness.  Swed- 
enborg  is  disagreeably  wise,  and  with  all  his  accu- 
'mulated  gifts,  paralyzes  and  repels. 

It  is  the  best  sign  of  a  great  nature  that  it  opens 
a  foreground,  and,  like  the  breath  of  morning 
landscapes,  invites  us  onward.  Swedenborg  is  re 
trospective,  nor  can  we  divest  him  of  his  mattock 
and  shroud.  Some  minds  are  for  ever  restrained 
from  descending  into  nature;  others  are  forever 
prevented  from  ascending  out  of  it.  With  a  force 
of  many  men,  he  could  never  break  the  umbilical 
cord  which  held  him  to  nature,  and  he  did  not  rise 
to  the  platform' of  pure  genius. 

It  is  remarkable  that  this  man,  who,  by  his  per 
ception  of  symbols,  saw  the  poetic  construction  of 
things  and  the  primary  relation  of  mifld  to  matter, 
remained  entirely  devoid  of  the  whole  apparatus  of 
poetic  expression,  which  that  perception  creates. 
He  knew  the  grammar  and  rudiments  of  the 
Mother-Tongue,  —  how  could  he  not  read  off  one 
strain  into  music  ?  Was  he  like  Saadi,  who,  in 
his  vision,  designed  to  fill  his  lap  with  the  celestial 
flowers,  as  presents  for  his  friends ;  but  the  fra 
grance  of  the  roses  so  intoxicated  him  that  the 
skirt  dropped  from  his  hands  ?  or  is  reporting  a 
breach  of  the  manners  of  that  heavenly  society  ? 


138  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

or  was  it  that  he  saw  the  vision  intellectually,  and 
hence  that  chiding  of  the  intellectual  that  pervades 
his  books  ?  Be  it  as  it  may,  his  books  have  no 
melody,  no  emotion,  no  humor,  no  relief  to  the 
dead  prosaic  level.  In  his  profuse  and  accurate 
imagery  is  no  pleasure,  for  there  is  no  beauty. 
We  wander  forlorn  in  a  lack-lustre  landscape.  No 
bird  ever  sang  in  all  these  gardens  of  the  dead. 
The  entire  want  of  poetry  in  so  transcendent  a 
.  mind  betokens  the  disease,  and  like  a  hoarse  voice 
in  a  beautiful  person,  is  a  kind  of  warning.  I 
think,  sometimes,  he  will  not  be  read  longer.  His 
great  name  will  turn  a  sentence.  His  books  have 
become  a  monument.  His  laurel  so  largely  mixed 
with  cypress,  a  chariiel-breath  so  mingles  with  the 
temple  incense,  that  boys  and  maids  will  shun  the 
spot. 

Yet  in  this  immolation  of  genius  and  fame  at 
the  shrine  of  conscience,  is  a  merit  sublime  beyond 
praise.  He  lived  to  purpose  :  he  gave  a  verdict. 
He  elected  goodness  as  the  clue  to  which  the  soul 
must  cling  in  all  this  labyrinth  of  nature.  Many 
opinions  conflict  as  to  the  true  centre.  In  the 
shipwreck,  some  cling  to  running  rigging,  some  to 
cask  and  barrel,  some  to  spars,  some  to  mast  ;  the 
pilot  chooses  with  science,  —  I  plant  myself  here ; 
all  will  sink  before  this ;  "  he  comes  to  land  who 
sails  with  me."  Do  not  rely  on  heavenly  favor,  or 
on  compassion  to  folly,  or  on  prudence,  on  common 


SWEDENBORG;   OR,   THE  MYSTIC.         139 

sense,  the  old  usage  and  main  chance  of  men :  noth 
ing  can  keep  you,  —  not  fate,  nor  health,  nor  ad 
mirable  intellect ;  none  can  keep  you,  but  rectitude 
only,  rectitude  for  ever  and  ever!  And  with  a 
tenacity  that  never  swerved  in  all  his  studies,  in 
ventions,  dreams,  he  adheres  to  this  brave  choice. 
I  think  of  him  as  of  some  transmigrating  votary  of 
Indian  legend,  who  says  'Though  I  be  dog,  or 
jackal,  or  pismire,  in  the  last  rudiments  of  nature, 
under  what  integument  or  ferocity,  I  cleave  to 
right,  as  the  sure  ladder  that  leads  up  to  man  and 
to  God.' 

Swedenborg  has  rendered  a  double  service  to 
mankind,  which  is  now  only  beginning  to  be  known. 
By  the  science  of  experiment  and  use,  he  made  his 
first  steps  :  he  observed  and  published  the  laws  of 
:  nature  ;  and  ascending  by  just  degrees  from  events 
to  their  summits  and  causes,  he  was  fired  with  piety 
at  the  harmonies  he  felt,  and  abandoned  himself  to 
his  joy  and  worship.  This  was  his  first  service.  If 
the  glory  was  too  bright  for  his  eyes  to  bear,  if  he 
staggered  under  the  trance  of  delight,  the  more  ex 
cellent  is  the  spectacle  he  saw,  the  realities  of  being 
which  beam  and  blaze  through  him,  and  which  no  in 
firmities  of  the  prophet  are  suffered  to  obscure ; 
and  he  renders  a  second  passive  service  to  men, 
not  less  than  the  first,  perhaps,  in  the  great  circle 
of  being,  —  and,  in  the  retributions  of  spiritual  na 
ture,  not  less  glorious  or  less  beautiful  to  himself. 


MONTAIGNE;   OR,   THE  SKEPTIC. 


iv: 

MONTAIGNE ;  OR,  THE   SKEPTIC. 


EVERY  fact  is  related  on  one  side  to  sensation, 
and  on  the  other  to  morals.  The  game  of  thought 
is,  on  the  appearance  of  one  of  these  two  sides,  to 
find  the  other :  given  the  upper,  to  find  the  under 
side.  Nothing  so  thin  but  has  these  two  faces,  and 
when  the  observer  has  seen  the  obverse,  he  turns  it 
over  to  see  the  reverse.  Life  is  a  pitching  of  this 
penny,  —  heads  or  tails.  We  never  tire  of  this 
game,  because  there  is  still  a  slight  shudder  of  as 
tonishment  at  the  exhibition  of  the  other  face,  at 
the  contrast  of  the  two  faces.  A  man  is  flushed 
with  success,  and  bethinks  himself  what  this  good 
luck  signifies.  He  drives  his  bargain  in  the  street ; 
but  it  occurs  that  he  also  is  bought  and  sold.  He 
sees  the  beauty  of  a  human  face,  and  searches  the 
cause  of  that  beauty,  which  must  be  more  beauti 
ful.  He  builds  his  fortunes,  maintains  the  laws, 
cherishes  his  children  ;  but  he  asks  himself,  Why  ? 
and  whereto  ?  This  head  and  this  tail  are  called, 
in  the  language  of  philosophy,  Infinite  and  Finite ; 


144  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

Eelative  and  Absolute  ;  Apparent  and  Eeal ;  and 
many  fine  names  beside. 

Each  man  is  born  with  a  predisposition  to  one 
or  the  other  of  these  sides  of  nature ;  and  it  will 
easily  happen  that  men  will  be  found  devoted  to 
one  or  the  other.  One  class  has  the  perception  of 
difference,  and  is  conversant  with  facts  and  sur 
faces,  cities  and  persons,  and  the  bringing  certain 
things  to  pass  ;  —  the  men  of  talent  and  action. 
Another  class  have  the  perception  of  identity,  and 
are  men  of  faith  and  philosophy,  men  of  genius. 

Each  of  these  riders  drives  too  fast.  Plotinus 
believes  only  in  philosophers ;  Fenelon,  in  saints  ; 
Pindar  and  Byron,  in  poets.  Eead  the  haughty 
language  in  which  Plato  and  the  Platonists  speak 
of  all  men  who  are  not  devoted  to  their  own  shin-  « 
ing  abstractions :  other  men  are  rats  and  mice. 
The  literary  class  is  usually  proud  and  exclusive. 
The  correspondence  of  Pope  and  Swift  describes 
mankind  around  them  as  monsters ;  and  that  of 
Goethe  and  Schiller,  in  our  own.  time,  is  scarcely 
more  kind. 

It  is  easy  to  see  how  this  arrogance  comes.  The 
genius  is  a  genius  by  the  first  look  he  casts  on  any  . 
object.  Is  his  eye  creative  ?  Does  he  not  rest  in 
angles  and  colors,  but  beholds  the  design?  —  he  will 
presently  undervalue  the  actual  object.  In  power 
ful  moments,  his  thought  has  dissolved  the  works 


MONTAIGNE;   OR,   THE  SKEPTIC.         145 

of  art  and  nature  into  their  causes,  so  that  the 
works  appear  heavy  and  faulty.  He  has  a  concep 
tion  of  beauty  which  the  sculptor  cannot  embody. 
Picture,  statue,  temple,  railroad,  steam-engine,  ex 
isted  first  in  an  artist's  mind,  without  flaw,  mistake, 
or  friction,  which  impair  the  executed  models.  So 
did  the  Church,  the  State,  college,  court,  social  cir 
cle,  and  all  the  institutions.  It  is  not  strange  that 
these  men,  remembering  what  they  have  seen  and 
hoped  of  ideas,  should  affirm  disdainfully  the  supe 
riority  of  ideas.  Having  at  some  time  seen  that 
the  happy  soul  will  carry  all  the  arts  in  power,  they 
say,  Why  cumber  ourselves  with  superfluous  reali 
zations?  and  like  dreaming  beggars  they  assume  to 
speak  and  act  as  if  these  values  were  already  sub 
stantiated. 

On  the  other  part,  the  men  of  toil  and  trade 
and  luxury,  —  the  animal  world,  including  the 
animal  in  the  philosopher  and  poet  also,  and  the 
practical  world,  including  the  painful  drudgeries 
which  are  never  excused  to  philosopher  or  poet 
any  more  than  to  the  rest,  —  weigh  heavily  on  the 
other  side.  The  trade  in  our  streets  believes  in 
no  metaphysical  causes,  thinks  nothing  of  the 
force  which  necessitated  traders  and  a  trading 
planet  to  exist :  no,  but  sticks  to  cotton,  sugar, 
wool  and  salt.  The  ward  meetings,  011  election 
days,  are  not  softened  by  any  misgiving  of  the 

VOL.   IV.  10 


146  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

value  of  these  ballotings.  Hot  life  is  streaming 
in  a  single  direction.  To  the  men  of  this  world, 
to  the  animal  strength  and  spirits,  to  the  men  of 
practical  power,  whilst  immersed  in  it,  the  man 
of  ideas  appears  out  of  his  reason.  They  alone 
have  reason. 

Things  always  bring  their  own  philosophy  with 
them,  that  is,  prudence.  No  man  acquires  prop- 
jerty  without  acquiring  with  it  a  little  arithmetic 
also.  In  England,  the  richest  country  that  ever 
Existed,  property  stands  for  more,  compared  with 
personal  ability,  than  in  any  other.  After  dinner, 
a  man  believes  less,  denies  more :  verities  have 
lost  some  charm.  After  dinner,  arithmetic  is  the 
only  science:  ideas  are  disturbing,  incendiary, 
follies  of  young  men,  repudiated  by  the  solid  por 
tion  of  society :  and  a  man  comes  to  be  valued 
by  his  athletic  and  animal  qualities.  Spence  re 
lates  that  Mr.  Pope  was  with  Sir  Godfrey  Kneller 
one  day,  when  his  nephew,  a  Guinea  trader,  came 
in.  "  Nephew,"  said  Sir  Godfrey,  "  you  have  the 
honor  of  seeing  the  two  greatest  men  in  the 
world."  "  I  don't  know  how  great  men  you  may 
be,"  said  the  Guinea  man,  "  but  I  don't  like  your 
looks.  I  have  often  bought  a  man  much  better 
than  both  of  you,  all  muscles  and  bones,  for  ten 
guineas."  Thus  the  men  of  the  senses  revenge 
themselves  on  the  professors  and  repay  scorn  for 


MONTAIGNE;   OR,   THE  SKEPTIC.          147 

scorn.  The  first  had  leaped  to  conclusions  not 
yet  ripe,  and  say  more  than  is  true  ;  the  others 
make  themselves  merry  with  the  philosopher,  and 
weigh  man  by  the  pound.  They  believe  that  mus 
tard  bites  the  tongue,  that  pepper  is  hot,  friction- 
matches  incendiary,  revolvers  are  to  be  avoided, 
and  suspenders  hold  up  pantaloons;  that  there  is 
much  sentiment  in  a  chest  of  tea ;  and  a  man  will 
be  eloquent,  if  you  give  him  good  wine.  Are  you 
tender  and  scrupulous,  —  you  must  eat  more  mince- 
pie.  They  hold  that  Luther  had  milk  in  him 
when  he  said,  — 

«  Wer  nicht  liebt  Wein,  Weiber,  Gesang, 
Der  bleibt  ein  Narr  sein  Leben  lang  ;  "  — 

and  when  he  advised  a  young  scholar,  perplexed 
with  fore-ordination  and  free-will,  to  get  well 
drunk.  "  The  nerves,"  says  Cabaxiis,  "  they  are 
the  man."  My  neighbor,  a  jolly  farmer,  in  the 
tavern  bar-room,  thinks  that  the  use  of  money  is 
sure  and  speedy  spending.  For  his  part,  he  says, 
he  puts  his  down  his  neck  and  gets  the  good  of  it. 

The  inconvenience  of  this  way  of  thinking  is 
that  it  runs  into  indifferentism  and  then  into  dis 
gust.  Life  is  eating  us  up.  We  shall  be  fables 
presently.  Keep  cool :  it  will  be  all  one  a  hun 
dred  years  hence.  Life's  well  enough,  but  we 
shall  be  glad  to  get  out  of  it,  and  they  will  all 
be  glad  to  have  us.  Why  should  we  fret  and 


148  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

drudge  ?  Our  meat  will  taste  to-morrow  as  it 
did  yesterday,  and  we  may  at  last  have  had 
enough  of  it.  "  Ah,"  said  my  languid  gentleman 
at  Oxford,  "there's  nothing  new  or  true,  —  and  no 
matter." 

With  a  little  more  bitterness,  the  cynic  moans ; 
our  life  is  like  an  ass  led  to  market  by  a  bundle 
of  hay  being  carried  before  him ;  he  sees  nothing 
but  the  bundle  of  hay.  "  There  is  so  much 
trouble  in  coming  into  the  world,"  said  Lord 
Bolingbroke,  "  and  so  much  more,  as  well  as 
meanness,  in  going  out  of  it,  that  'tis  hardly 
worth  while  to  be  here  at  all."  I  knew  a  philoso 
pher  of  this  kidney  who  was  accustomed  briefly 
to  sum  up  his  experience  of  human  nature  in  say 
ing,  "  Mankind  is  a  damned  rascal :  "  and  the 
natural  corollary  is  pretty  sure  to  follow,  —  '  The 
world  lives  by  humbug,  and  so  will  I.' 

The  abstractionist  and  the  materialist  thus  mu 
tually  exasperating  each  other,  and  the  scoffer 
expressing  the  worst  of  materialism,  there  arises 
a  third  party  to  occupy  the  middle  ground  be 
tween  these  two,  the  skeptic,  namely.  He  finds 
both  wrong  by  being  in  extremes.  He  labors  to 
plant  his  feet,  to  be  the  beam  of  the  balance. 
He  will  not  go  beyond  his  card.  He  sees  the 
one-sidedness  of  these  men  of  the  street ;  he  will 
not  be  a  Gibeonite ;  he  stands  for  the  intellectual 


MONTAIGNE;   OR,   THE  SKEPTIC.         149 

faculties,  a  cool  head  and  whatever  serves  to  keep 
it  cool ;  no  unadvised  industry,  no  unrewarded 
self-devotion,  no  loss  of  the  brains  in  toil.  Am  I 
an  ox,  or  a  dray  ?  —  You  are  both  in  extremes,  he 
says.  You  that  will  have  all  solid,  and  a  world 
of  pig-lead,  deceive  yourselves  grossly.  You  be 
lieve  yourselves  rooted  and  grounded  on  adamant ; 
and  yet,  if  we  uncover  the  last  facts  of  our  knowl 
edge,  you  are  spinning  like  bubbles  in  a  river, 
you  know  not  whither  or  whence,  and  you  are 
bottomed  and  capped  and  wrapped  in  delusions. 
Neither  will  he  be  betrayed  to  a  book  and  wrapped 
in  a  gown.  The  studious  class  are  their  own  vic 
tims  ;  they  are  thin  and  pale,  their  feet  are  cold, 
their  heads  are  hot,  the  night  is  without  sleep, 
the  day  a  fear  of  interruption,  —  pallor,  squalor, 
hunger  and  egotism.  If  you  come  near  them  and 
see  what  conceits  they  entertain,  —  they  are  ab 
stractionists,  and  spend  their  days  and  nights  in 
dreaming  some  dream  ;  in  expecting  the  homage 
of  society  to  some  precious  scheme,  built  on  a  truth, 
but  destitute  of  proportion  in  its  presentment,  of 
justness  in  its  application,  and  of  all  energy  of  will 
in  the  schemer  to  embody  and  vitalize  it. 

But  I  see  plainly,  he  says,  that  I  cannot  see.  I 
know  that  human  strength  is  not  in  extremes,  but 
in  avoiding  extremes.  I,  at  least,  will  shun  the 
weakness  of  philosophizing  beyond  my  depth. 


150  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

What  is  the  use  of  pretending  to  powers  we  have 
not  ?  What  is  the  use  of  pretending  to  assurances 
we  have  not,  respecting  the  other  life  ?  Why  ex 
aggerate  the  power  of  virtue  ?  Why  be  an  angel 
before  your  time  ?  These  strings,  wound  up  too 
high,  will  snap.  If  there  is  a  wish  for  immortality, 
and  no  evidence,  why  not  say  just  that  ?  If  there 
are  conflicting  evidences,  why  not  state  them  ?  If 
there  is  not  ground  for  a  candid  thinker  to  make 
up  his  mind,  yea  or  nay,  —  why  not  suspend  the 
judgment  ?  I  weary  of  these  dogmatizers.  I  tire 
of  these  hacks  of  routine,  who  deny  the  dogmas. 
I  neither  affirm  nor  deny.  I  stand  here  to  try  the 
case.  I  am  here  to  consider,  o-Ko/reu',  to  consider 
how  it  is.  I  will  try  to  keep  the  balance  true.  Of 
what  use  to  take  the  chair  and  glibly  rattle  off 
theories  of  society,  religion  and  nature,  when  I 
know  that  practical  objections  lie  in  the  way,  in 
surmountable  by  me  and  by  my  mates  ?  Why  so 
talkative  in  public,  when  each  of  my  neighbors  can 
pin  me  to  my  seat  by  arguments  I  cannot  refute  ? 
Why  pretend  that  life  is  so  simple  a  game,  when 
we  know  how  subtle  and  elusive  the  Proteus  is  ? 
Why  think  to  shut  up  all  things  in  your  narrow 
coop,  when  we  know  there  are  not  one  or  two  only, 
but  ten,  twenty,  a  thousand  things,  and  unlike  ? 
Why  fancy  that  you  have  all  the  truth  in  your 
keeping  ?  There  is  much  to  say  on  all  sides. 


MONTAIGNE;   OR,   THE  SKEPTIC.          151 

Who  shall  forbid  a  wise  skepticism,  seeing  that 
there  is  no  practical  question  on  which  any  thing 
more  than  an  approximate  solution  can  be  had?  Is 
not  marriage  an  open  question,  when  it  is  alleged, 
.from  the  beginning  of  the  world,  that  such  as  are 
in  the  institution  wish  to  get  out,  and  such  as  are 
out  wish  to  get  in  ?  And  the  reply  of  Socrates,  to 
him  who  asked  whether  he  should  choose  a  wife, 
still  remains  reasonable,  that  "  whether  he  should 
choose  one  or  not,  he  would  repent  it."  Is  not 
the  State  a  question?  All  society  is  divided  in 
opinion  on  the  subject  of  the  State.  Nobody  loves 
it ;  great  numbers  dislike  it  and  suffer  conscien 
tious  scruples  to  allegiance ;  and  the  only  defence 
set  up,  is  the  fear  of  doing  worse  in  disorganizing. 
Is  it  otherwise  with  the  Church  ?  Or,  to  put  any 
of  the  questions  which  touch  mankind  nearest,  — 
shall  the  young  man  aim  at  a  leading  part  in  law, 
in  politics,  in  trade  ?  It  will  not  be  pretended 
that  a  success  in  either  of  these  kinds  is  quite 
coincident  with  what  is  best  and  inmost  in  his 
mind.  Shall  he  then,  cutting  the  stays  that  hold 
him  fast  to  the  social  state,  put  out  to  sea  with  no 
guidance  but  his  genius?  There  is  much  to  say  on 
both  sides.  Remember  the  open  question  between 
the  present  order  of  "competition"  and  the  friends 
of  "  attractive  and  associated  labor."  The  gener 
ous  minds  embrace  the  proposition  of  labor  shared 


152  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

by  all ;  it  is  the  only  honesty ;  nothing  else  is  safe. 
It  is  from  the  poor  man's  hut  alone  that  strength 
and  virtue  come  :  and  yet,  on  the  other  side,  it  is 
alleged  that  labor  impairs  the  form  and  breaks  the 
spirit  of  man,  and  the  laborers  cry  unanimously, 
'We  have  no  thoughts.'  Culture,  how  indispen 
sable  !  I  cannot  forgive  you  the  want  of  accom 
plishments  ;  and  yet  culture  will  instantly  impair 
that  chiefest  beauty  of  spontaneousness.  Excellent 
is  culture  for  a  savage  ;  but  once  let  him  read  in 
the  book,  and  he  is  no  longer  able  not  to  think  of 
Plutarch's  heroes.  In  short,  since  true  fortitude 
of  understanding  consists  "  in  not  letting  what  we 
know  be  embarrassed  by  what  we  do  not  know," 
we  ought  to  secure  those  advantages  which  we  can 
command,  and  not  risk  them  by  clutching  after  the 
airy  and  unattainable.  Come,  no  chimeras  !  Let 
us  go  abroad ;  let  us  mix  in  affairs ;  let  us  learn 
and  get  and  have  and  climb.  "  Men  are  a  sort  of 
moving  plants,  and,  like  trees,  receive  a  great  part 
of  their  nourishment  from  the  air.  If  they  keep 
too  much  at  home,  they  pine."  Let  us  have  a 
robust,  manly  life  ;  let  us  know  what  we  know,  for 
certain ;  what  we  have,  let  it  be  solid  and  season 
able  and  our  own.  A  world  in  the  hand  is  worth 
two  in  the  bush.  Let  us  have  to  do  with  real  men 
and  women,  and  not  with  skipping  ghosts. 

This  then_js  the  right  ground  of  the  skeptic.  — < 


MONTAIGNE;   OR,   THE  SKEPTIC.          153 

this  of  consideration,  of  self^ntaiiiingj  not  a,t  n.]^ 
of  mibelief ;  not  at  all  of  ^universal  denying  nor^ 
of  universal__dpubting.  —  doubting  even  that  he 
doubts  ;  least  of  all  of  scoffing  and  profligate  jeer 
ing  at  all  that  is  stable  and  good.  These  are  no 
more  his  moods  than  are  those  of  religion  and  phi 
losophy.  He  is  the  considerer,  the  prudent,  taking 
in  sail,  counting  stock,  husbanding  his  means,  be 
lieving  that  a  man  has  toojnany  enemies  tlian,  that 
he  can  afford  to  be  his  own  foe ;  that  we  cannot 
give  ourselves  too  many  advantages  in  this  unequal 
conflict,  with  powers  so  vast  and  unweariable 
ranged  on  one  side,  and  this  little  conceited  vulner 
able  popinjay  that  a  man  is,  bobbing  up  and  down 
into  every  danger,  on  the  other.  It  is  a  position 
taken  up  for  better  defence,  as  of  more  safety,  and 
one  that  can  be  maintained ;  and  it  is  one  of  more 
opportunity  and  range :  as,  when  we  build  a  house, 
the  rule  is  to  set  it  not  too  high  nor  too  low,  under 
the  wind,  but  out  of  the  dirt. 

The  philosophy  we  want  is  one  of  fluxions  and 
mobility.  The  Spartan  and  Stoic  schemes  are  too 
stark  and  stiff  for  our  occasion.  A  theory  of  Saint 
John,  and  of  nonresistance,  seems,  on  the  other 
hand,  too  thin  and  aerial.  We  want  some  coat 
woven  of  elastic  steel,  stout  as  the  first  and  limber 
as  the  second.  We  want  a  ship  in  these  billows 
we  inhabit.  An  angular,  dogmatic  house  would 


154  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

be  rent  to  chips  and  splinters  in  this  storm  of  many 
elements.  No,  it  must  be  tight,  and  fit  to  the  form 
of  man,  to  live  at  all ;  as  a  shell  must  dictate  the 
architecture  of  a  house  founded  on  the  sea.  The 
soul  of  man  must  be  the  type  of  our  scheme,  just 
as  the  body  of  man  is  the  type  after  which  a 
dwelling-house  is  built.  Adaptiveness  is  the  pecu 
liarity  of  human  nature.  We  are  golden  averages, 
volitant  stabilities,  compensated  or  periodic  errors, 
houses  founded  on  the  sea.  The  wise  skeptic 
wishes  to  have  a  near  view  of  the  best  game  and 
the  chief  players ;  what  is  best  in  the  planet  ;  art 
and  nature,  places  and  events ;  but  mainly  men. 
Every  thing  that  is  excellent  in  mankind,  —  a  form 
of  grace,  an  arm  of  iron,  lips  of  persuasion,  a  brain 
of  resources,  every  one  skilful  to  play  and  win,  — 
he  will  see  and  judge. 

The  terms  of  admission  to  this  spectacle  are, 
that  he  have  a  certain  solid  and  intelligible  way  of 
living  of  his  own ;  some  method  of  answering  the 
inevitable  needs  of  human  life  ;  proof  that  he  has 
played  with  skill  and  success  ;  that  he  has  evinced 
the  temper,  stoutness  and  the  range  of  qualities 
which,  among  his  contemporaries  and  countrymen, 
entitle  him  to  fellowship  and  trust.  For  the  secrets 
of  life  are  not  shown  except  to  sympathy  and  like 
ness.  Men  do  not  confide  themselves  to  boys,  or 
coxcombs,  or  pedants,  but  to  their  peers.  Some 


MONTAIGNE;   OR,   THE  SKEPTIC.         155 

wise  limitation,  as  the  modern  phrase  is ;  some 
condition  between  the  extremes,  and  having,  itself,  a 
positive  quality ;  some  stark  and  sufficient  man,  who 
is  not  salt  or  sugar,  but  sufficiently  related  to  the 
world  to  do  justice  to  Paris  or  London,  and,  at  the 
same  time,  a  vigorous  and  original  thinker,  whom 
cities  can  not  overawe,  but  who  uses  them,  —  is  the  / ' 
fit  person  to  occupy  this  ground  of  speculation. 

These  qualities  meet  in  the  character  of  Mon 
taigne.  And  yet,  since  the  personal  regard  which 
I  entertain  for  Montaigne  may  be  unduly  great,  I 
will,  under  the  shield  of  this  prince  of  egotists, 
offer,  as  an  apology  for  electing  him  as  the  repre 
sentative  of  skepticism,  a  word  or  two  to  explain 
how  my  love  began  and  grew  for  this  admirable 
gossip. 

A  single  odd  volume  of  Cotton's  translation  of 
the  Essays  remained  to  me  from  my  father's  li 
brary,  when  a  boy.  It  lay  long  neglected,  until, 
after  many  years,  when  I  was  newly  escaped  from 
college,  I  read  the  book,  and  procured  the  remain 
ing  volumes.  I  remember  the  delight  and  wonder 
in  which  I  lived  with  it.  It  seemed  to  me  as  if  I 
had  myself  written  the  book,  in  some  former  life, 
so  sincerely  it  spoke  to  my  thought  and  experience. 
It  happened,  when  in  Paris,  in  1833,  that,  in  the 
cemetery  of  Pere  Lachaise,  I  came  tp  a  tomb  of 
Auguste  Collignon,  who  died  in  1830,  aged  sixty- 


156  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

eight  years,  and  who,  said  the  monument,  "lived 
to  do  right,  and  had  formed  himself  to  virtue  on 
the  Essays  of  Montaigne."  Some  years  later,  I 
became  acquainted  with  an  accomplished  English 
poet,  John  Sterling ;  and,  in  prosecuting  my  cor 
respondence,  I  found  that,  from  a  love  of  Mon 
taigne,  he  had  made  a  pilgrimage  to  his  chateau, 
still  standing  near  Castellan,  in  Perigord,  and,  af 
ter  two  hundred  and  fifty  years,  had  copied  from 
the  walls  of  his  library  the  inscriptions  which  Mon 
taigne  had  written  there.  That  Journal  of  Mr. 
Sterling's,  published  in  the  Westminster  Review, 
Mr.  Hazlitt  has  reprinted  in  the  Prolegomena  to 
his  edition  of  the  Essays.  I  heard  with  pleasure 
that  one  of  the  newly-discovered  autographs  of 
William  Shakspeare  was  in  a  copy  of  Florio's  trans 
lation  of  Montaigne.  It  is  the  only  book  which  we 
certainly  know  to  have  been  in  the  poet's  library. 
And,  oddly  enough,  the  duplicate  copy  of  Florio, 
which  the  British  Museum  purchased  with  a  view 
of  protecting  the  Shakspeare  autograph,  (as  I  was 
informed  in  the  Museum,)  turned  out  to  have  the 
autograph  of  Ben  Jonson  in  the  fly-leaf.  Leigh 
Hunt  relates  of  Lord  Byron,  that  Montaigne  was 
the  only  great  writer  of  past  times  whom  he  read 
with  avowed  satisfaction.  Other  coincidences,  not 
needful  to  be  mentioned  here,  concurred  to  make 
this  old  Gascon  still  new  and  immortal  for  me. 


MONTAIGNE;   OR,   THE  SKEPTIC.         157 

In  1571,  on  the  death  of  his  father,  Montaigne, 
then  thirty-eight  years  old,  retired  from  the  prac 
tice  of  law  at  Bordeaux,  and  settled  himself  on  his 
estate.  Though  he  had  been  a  man  of  pleasure 
and  sometimes  a  courtier,  his  studious  habits  now 
grew  on  him,  and  he  loved  the  compass,  staidness 
and  independence  of  tlio  country  gentleman's  life. 
He  took  up  his  economy  in  good  earnest,  and  made 
his  farms  yield  the  most.  Downright  and  plain- 
dealing,  and  abhorring  to  be  deceived  or  to  de 
ceive,  he  was  esteemed  in  the  country  for  his  sense 
and  probity.  In  the  civil  wars  of  the  League, 
which  converted  every  house  into  a  fort,  Montaigne 
kept  his  gates  open  and  his  house  without  defence. 
All  parties  freely  came  and  went,  his  courage  and 
honor  being  universally  esteemed.  The  neighbor 
ing  lords  and  gentry  brought  jewels  and  papers  to 
him  for  safe  -  keeping.  Gibbon  reckons,  in  these 
bigoted  times,  but  two  men  of  liberality  in  France, 
—  Henry  IY.  and  Montaigne. 

Montaigne  is  the  frankest  and  honestest  of  all 
writers.  His  French  freedom  runs  into  grossness  ;  S$  I 
but  he  has  anticipated  all  censure  by  the  bounty  of 
his  own  confessions.  In  his  times,  books  were 
written  to  one  sex  only,  and  almost  all  were  writ 
ten  in  Latin  ;  so  that  in  a  humorist  a  certain  na 
kedness  of  statement  was  permitted,  which  our 
manners,  of  a  literature  addressed  equally  to  both 


158  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

sexes,  do  not  allow.  But  though  a  biblical  plain 
ness  coupled  with  a  most  uncanoiiical  levity  may 
shut  his  pages  to  many  sensitive  readers,  yet  the 
offence  is  superficial.  He  parades  it:  he  makes 
the  most  of  it :  nobody  can  think  or  say  worse  of 
him  than  he  does.  He  pretends  to  most  of  the 
vices ;  and,  if  there  be  any  virtue  in  him,  he  says, 
it  got  in  by  stealth.  There  is  no  man,  in  his  opin 
ion,  who  has  not  deserved  hanging  five  or  six  times ; 
and  he  pretends  no  exception  in  his  own  behalf. 
"Five  or  six  as  ridiculous  stories,"  too,  he  says, 
"  can  be  told  of  me,  as  of  any  man  living."  But, 
with  all  this  really  superfluous  frankness,  the  opin 
ion  of  an  invincible  probity  grows  into  every  read 
er'  s  mind.  "  When  I  the  most  strictly  and  relig 
iously  confess  myself,  I  find  that  the  best  virtue  I 
have  has  in  it  some  tincture  of  vice ;  and  I,  who 
am  as  sincere  and  perfect  a  lover  of  virtue  of  that 
stamp  as  any  other  whatever,  am  afraid  that  Plato, 
in  his  purest  virtue,  if  he  had  listened  and  laid  his 
ear  close  to  himself,  would  have  heard  some  jarring 
sound  of  human  mixture ;  but  faint  and  remote 
and  only  to  be  perceived  by  himself." 

Here  is  an  impatience  and  fastidiousness  at  color 
or  pretence  of  any  kind.  He  has  been  in  courts  so 
long  as  to  have  conceived  a  furious  disgust  at  ap 
pearances  ;  he  will  indulge  himself  with  a  little 
cursing  and  swearing ;  he  will  talk  with  sailors  and 


MONTAIGNE;   OR,   THE  SKEPTIC.         159 

gipsies,  use  flash  and  street  ballads ;  he  has  stayed 
iii-doors  till  he  is  deadly  sick ;  he  will  to  the  open 
air,  though  it  rain  bullets.  He  has  seen  too  much 
of  gentlemen  of  the  long  robe,  until  he  wishes  for 
cannibals  ;  and  is  so  nervous,  by  factitious  life,  that 
he  thinks  the  more  barbarous  man  is,  the  better  he 
is.  He  likes  his  saddle.  You  may  read  theology, 
and  grammar,  and  metaphysics  elsewhere.  What 
ever  you  get  here  shall  smack  of  the  earth  and  of 
real  life,  sweet,  or  smart,  or  stinging.  He  makes 
no  hesitation  to  entertain  you  with  the  records  of 
his  disease,  and  his  journey  to  Italy  is  quite  full  of 
that  matter.  He  took  and  kept  this  position  of 
equilibrium.  Over  his  name  he  drew  an  emblem 
atic  pair  of  scales,  and  wrote  Que  sgais  je  ?  under 
it.  As  I  look  at  his  effigy  opposite  the  title-page, 
I  seem  to  hear  him  say,  '  You  may  play  old  Poz,  if 
you  will ;  you  may  rail  and  exaggerate,  —  I  stand; 
here  for  truth,  and  will  not,  for  all  the  states  and 
churches  and  revenues  and  personal  reputations 
of  Europe,  overstate  the  dry  fact,  as  I  see  it;  I 
will  rather  mumble  and  prose  about  what  I  cer 
tainly  know,  —  my  house  and  barns ;  my  father, 
my  wife  and  my  tenants  ;  my  old  lean  bald  pate  ; 
my  knives  and  forks  ;  what  meats  I  eat  and  what 
drinks  I  prefer,  and  a  hundred  straws  just  as  ridic 
ulous,  —  than  I  will  write,  with  a  fine  crow-quill, 
a  fine  romance.  I  like  gray  days,  and  autumn  and 


160  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

winter  weather.  I  am  gray  and  autumnal  myself, 
and  think  an  undress  and  okl  shoes  that  do  not 
pinch  my  feet,  and  old  friends  who  do  not  con 
strain  me,  and  plain  topics  where  I  do  not  need  to 
strain  myself  and  pump  my  brains,  the  most  suit 
able.  Our  condition  as  men  is  risky  and  ticklish 
enough.  One  cannot  be  sure  of  himself  and  his 
fortune  an  hour,  but  he  may  be  whisked  off  into 
some  pitiable  or  ridiculous  plight.  Why  should  I 
vapor  and  play  the  philosopher,  instead  of  ballast 
ing,  the  best  I  can,  this  dancing  balloon  ?  So,  at 
least,  I  live  within  compass,  keep  myself  ready  for 
action,  and  can  shoot  the  gulf  at  last  with  decency. 
If  there  be  any  thing  farcical  in  such  a  life,  the 
blame  is  not  mine  :  let  it  lie  at  fate's  and  nature's 
door.' 

The  Essays,  therefore,  are  an  entertaining  solilo 
quy  on  every  random  topic  that  comes  into  his 
head ;  treating  every  thing  without  ceremony,  yet 
with  masculine  sense.  There  have  been  men  with 
deeper  insight;  but,  one  would  say,  never  a  man 
with  such  abundance  of  thoughts  :  he  is  never  dull, 
never  insincere,  and  has  the  genius  to  make  the 
reader  care  for  all  that  he  cares  for. 

The  sincerity  and  marrow  of  the  man  reaches  to 
his  sentences.  I  know  not  anywhere  the  book  that 
?  seems  less  written.  It  is  the  language  of  conversa 
tion  transferred  to  a  book.  Cut  these  words,  and 


MONTAIGNE;   OR,   THE  SKEPTIC.         161 

they  would  bleed ;  they  are  vascular  and  alive.  One 
has  the  same  pleasure  in  it  that  he  feels  in  listening 
to  the  necessary  speech  of  men  about  their  work, 
when  any  unusual  circumstance  gives  momentary 
importance  to  the  dialogue.  For  blacksmiths  and 
teamsters  do  not  trip  in  their  speech ;  it  is  a  shower 
of  bullets.  It  is  Cambridge  men  who  correct  them 
selves  and  begin  again  at  every  half  sentence,  and, 
moreover,  will  pun,  and  reiine  too  much,  and 
swerve  from  the  matter  to  the  expression.  Moii^ 
taigne  talks  with  shrewdness,  knows  the  world  and 
books  and  himself,  and  uses  the  positive  degree : 
never  shrieks,  or  protests,  or  prays  :  no  weakness,  no 
convulsion,  no  superlative  :  does  not  wish  to  jump 
out  of  his  skin,  or  play  any  antics,  or  annihilate 
space  or  time,  but  is  stout  and  solid ;  tastes  every 
moment  of  the  day;  likes  pain  because  it  makes 
him  feel  himself  and  realize  things;  as  we  pinch 
ourselves  to  know  that  we  are  awake.  He  keeps 
the  plain  ;  he  rarely  mounts  or  sinks ;  likes  to  feel 
solid  ground  and  the  stones  underneath.  His  writ 
ing  has  no  enthusiasms,  no  aspiration  ;  contented, 
self-respecting  and  keeping  the  middle  of  the  road. 
There  is  but  one  exception,  —  in  his  love  for  Soc 
rates.  In  speaking  of  him,  for  once  his  cheek 
flushes  and  his  style  rises  to  passion. 

Montaigne  died  of  a  quinsy,  at  the  age  of  sixty, 
in  1592.     When  he  came  to  die  he  caused  the  mass 

VOL.  IV.  11 


162  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

to  be  celebrated  in  his  chamber.  At  the  age  of 
thirty-three,  he  had  been  married.  "  But,"  he  says, 
"  might  I  have  had  my  own  will,  I  would  not  have 
married  Wisdom  herself,  if  she  would  have  had 
me :  but  't  is  to  much  purpose  to  evade  it,  the 
common  custom  and  use  of  life  will  have  it  so. 
Most  of  my  actions  are  guided  by  example,  not 
choice."  In  the  hour  of  death,  he  gave  the  same 
weight  to  custom.  Que  spais  je?  What  do  I 
know  ? 

This  book  ef  Montaigne  the  world  has  endorsed 
by  translating  it  into  all  tongues  and  printing  sev 
enty-five  editions  of  it  in  Europe ;  and  that,  too,  a 
circulation  somewhat  chosen,  namely  among  court 
iers,  soldiers,  princes,  men  of  the  world  and  men  of 
wit  and  generosity. 

Shall  we  say  that  Montaigne  has  spoken  wisely, 
and  given  the  right  and  permanent  expression  of 
the  human  mind,  on  the  conduct  of  life  ? 

We  are  natural  believers.  Truth,  or  the  connec 
tion  between  cause  and  effect,  alone  interests  us. 
We  are  persuaded  that  a  thread  runs  through  all 
things  :  all  worlds  are  strung  on  it,  as  beads  ;  and 
men,  and  events,  and  life,  come  to  us  only  because 
of  that  thread :  they  pass  and  repass  only  that  we 
may  know  the  direction  and  continuity  of  that  line. 
A  book  or  statement  which  goes  to  show  that  there 


MONTAIGNE;   OR,   THE  SKEPTIC.         1G3 

is  no  line,  but  random  and  chaos,  a  calamity  out  of 
nothing,  a  prosperity  and  no  account  of  it,  a  hero 
born  from  a  fool,  a  fool  from  a  hero,  —  dispirits  us. 
Seen  or  unseen,  we  believe  the  tie  exists.  Talent 
makes  counterfeit  ties ;  genius  finds  the  real  ones. 
We  hearken  to  the  man  of  science,  because  we  an 
ticipate  the  sequence  in  natural  phenomena  which 
he  uncovers.  We  love  whatever  affirms,  connects, 
preserves  ;  and  dislike  what  scatters  or  pulls  down. 
One  man  appears  whose  nature  is  to  all  men's  eyes 
conserving  and  constructive  :  his  presence  supposes 
a  well-ordered  society,  agriculture,  trade,  large  in 
stitutions  and  empire.  If  these  did  not  exist,  they 
would  begin  to  exist  through  his  endeavors.  There 
fore  he  cheers  and  comforts  men,  who  feel  all  this 
in  him  very  readily.  The  nonconformist  _and  the 
rebel  say  all  manner  of  unanswerable,  thjpo^  no-flirisii 
the  ex:  sting  republic,  b^t  flisnoyer  to  our  sense,  _T»Q. 
plan  of  house  or  state  of  their  ojaaL^  Therefore, 
though  the  town  and  state  and  way  of  living,  which 
our  counsellor  contemplated,  might  be  a  very  mod 
est  or  musty  prosperity,  yet  men  rightly  go  for 
him,  flnfl  reject  the  reformer  so  .long.. as. .he  comes 
only  with  axe  ajidjgowbar. 

But  though  we  are  natural  con  servers  and  caus- 
ationists,  and  reject  a  sour,  dumpish  unbelief,  the 
skeptical  class,  which  Montaigne  represents,  have 
reason,  and  every  man,  at  some  time,  belongs  to  it. 


164  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

Every  superior  mind  will  pass  through  this  domain 
of  equilibration,  —  I  should  rather  say,  will  know 
how  to  avail  himself  of  the  checks  and  balances  in 
nature,  as  a  natural  weapon  against  the  exaggera 
tion  arid  formalism  of  bigots  and  blockheads. 

Skepticism  is  the  attitude  assumed  by  the  stu- 
jclent  in  relation  to  the  particulars  which  society 
/adores,  but  which  he  sees  to  be  reverend  only  in 
their  tendency  and  spirit.  The  ground  occupied 
by  the  skeptic  is  the  vestibule  of  the  temple.  Soci 
ety  does  not  like  to  have  any  breath  of  question 
blown  on  the  existing  order.  But  the  interroga 
tion  of  custom  at  all  points  is  an  inevitable  stage 
in  the  growth  of  every  superior  mind,  and  is  the 
evidence  of  its  perception  of  the  flowing  power 
which  remains  itself  in  all  changes. 

The  superior  mind  will  find  itself  equally  at 
odds  with  the  evils  of  society  and  with  the  projects 
that  are  offered  to  relieve  them.  The  wise  skeptic 
is  a  bad  citizen  ;  no  conservative,  he  sees  the  sel 
fishness  of  property  and  the  drowsiness  of  institu 
tions.  But  neither  is  he  fit  to  work  with  any  demo 
cratic  party  that  ever  was  constituted  ;  for  parties 
wish  every  one  committed,  and  he  penetrates  the 
popular  patriotism.  His  politics  are  those  of  the 
"  Soul's  Errand "  of  Sir  Walter  Kaleigh  ;  or  of 
Krishna,  in  the  Bhagavat,  "  There  is  none  who  is 
worthy  of  my  love  or  hatred ;  "  whilst  he  sentences 


1717 1 V 


MONTAIGNE;   OR,   THE 


law,  physic,  divinity,  commerce  and  custom.  He 
is  a  reformer  ;  yet  he  is  no  better  member  of  the 
philanthropic  association.  It  turns  out  that  he  is 
not  the  champion  of  the  operative,  the  pauper,  the 
prisoner,  the  slave.  It  stands  in  his  mind  that  our 
life  in  this  world  is  not  of  quite  so  easy  interpreta 
tion  as  churches  and  school-books  say.  He  does 
not  wish  to  take  ground  against  these  benevolences, 
to  play  the  part  of  devil's  attorney,  and  blazon 
every  doubt  and  sneer  that  darkens  the  sun  for 
him.  But  he  says,  There  are  doubts. 

I  mean  to  use  the  occasion,  and  celebrate  the 
calendar-day  of  our  Saint  Michel  de  Montaigne,  by 
counting  and  describing  these  doubts  or  negations. 
I  wish  to  ferret  them  out  of  their  holes  and  sun 
them  a  little.  We  must  do  with  them  as  the  police 
do  with  old  rogues,  who  are  shown  up  to  the  pub 
lic  at  the  marshal's  office.  They  will  never  be  so 
formidable  when  once  they  have  been  identified 
and  registered.  But  I  mean  honestly  by  them,  — 
that  justice  shall  be  done  to  their  terrors.  I  shall 
not  take  Sunday  objections,  made  up  on  purpose  to 
be  put  down.  I  shall  take  the  worst  I  can  find, 
whether  I  can  dispose  of  them  or  they  of  me. 

I  do  not  press  the  skepticism  of  the  materialist. 
I  know  the  quadruped  opinion  will  not  prevaiL 
'T  is  of  no  importance  what  bats  and  oxen  think. 
The  first  dangerous  symptom  I  report  is,  the  levity 


166  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

of  intellect ;  as  if  it  were  fatal  to  earnestness  to 
know  much.  Knowledge  is  the  knowing  that  we 
can  not  know.  The  dull  pray ;  the  geniuses  are 
light  mockers.  How  respectable  is  earnestness  on 
every  platform  !  but  intellect  kills  it.  Nay,  San 
Carlo,  my  subtle  and  admirable  friend,  one  of  the 
most  penetrating  of  men,  finds  that  all  direct  as 
cension,  even  of  lofty  piety,  leads  to  this  ghastly 
insight  and  sends  back  the  votary  orphaned.  My 
astonishing  San  Carlo  thought  the  lawgivers  and 
saints  infected.  They  found  the  ark  empty  ;  saw, 
and  would  not  tell ;  and  tried  to  choke  off  their  ap 
proaching  followers,  by  saying,  '  Action,  action,  my 
dear  fellows,  is  for  you  ! '  Bad  as  was  to  nie  this 
detection  by  San  Carlo,  this  frost  in  July,  this 
blow  from  a  bride,  there  was  still  a  worse,  namely 
the  cloy  or  satiety  of  the  saints.  In  the  mount  of 
vision,  ere  they  have  yet  risen  from  their  knees, 
they  say,  '  We  discover  that  this  our  homage  and 
beatitude  is  partial  and  deformed :  we  must  fly 
for  relief  to  the  suspected  and  reviled  Intellect,  to 
the  Understanding,  the  Mephistopheles,  to  the 
gymnastics  of  talent.' 

This  is  hobgoblin  the  first ;  and,  though  it  has 
been  the  subject  of  much  elegy  in  our  nineteenth 
century,  from  Byron,  Goethe  and  other  poets  of 
less  fame,  not  to  mention  many  distinguished  pri 
vate  observers,  —  I  confess  it  is  not  very  affecting 


MONTAIGNE;   OR,   THE  SKEPTIC.         167 

to  my  imagination ;  for  it  seems  to  concern  the 
shattering  of  baby  -  houses  and  crockery  -  shops. 
What  flutters  the  Church  of  Rome,  or  of  England, 
or  of  Geneva,  or  of  Boston,  may  yet  be  very  far 
from  touching  any  principle  of  faith.  I  think  that 
the  intellect  and  moral  sentiment  are  unanimous  ; 
and  that  though  philosophy  extirpates  bugbears,  yet 
it  supplies  the  natural  checks  of  vice,  and  polarity  to 
the  soul.  I  think  that  the  wiser  a  man  is,  the  more 
stupendous  he  finds  the  natural  and  moral  econ 
omy,  and  lifts  himself  to  a  more  absolute  reliance. 

There  is  the  power  of   moods,  each  setting  at 
nought  all  but  its  own  tissue  of  facts  and  beliefs. 

o 

There  is  the  power  of  complexions,  obviously  modi 
fying  the  dispositions  and  sentiments.  The  beliefs 
and  unbeliefs  appear  to  be  structural ;  and  as  soon 
as  each  man  attains  the  poise  and  vivacity  which 
allow  the  whole  machinery  to  play,  he  will  not 
need  extreme  examples,  but  will  rapidly  alternate 
all  opinions  in  his  own  life.  Our  life  is  March 
weather,  savage  and  serene  in  one  hour.  We  go 
forth  austere,  dedicated,  believing  in  the  iron  links 
of  Destiny,  and  will  not  turn  on  our  heel  to  save 
our  life  :  but  a  book,  or  a  bust,  or  only  the  sound 
of  a  name,  shoots  a  spark  through  the  nerves,  and 
we  suddenly  believe  in  will :  my  finger-ring  shall 
be  the  seal  of  Solomon  ;  fate  is  for  imbeciles ;  all 
is  possible  to  the  resolved  mind.  Presently  a  new 


168  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

experience  gives  a  new  turn  to  our  thoughts  :  com 
mon  sense  resumes  its  tyranny  ;  we  say,  4  Well,  the 
army,  after  all,  is  the  gate  to  fame,  manners  and 
poetry :  and,  look  you,  —  on  the  whole,  selfishness 
plants  best,  prunes  best,  makes  the  best  commerce 
and  the  best  citizen.'  Are  the  opinions  of  a  man 
on  right  and  wrong,  on  fate  and  causation,  at  the 
mercy  of  a  broken  sleep  or  an  indigestion  ?  Is  his 
belief  in  God  and  Duty  no  deeper  than  a  stomach 
evidence  ?  And  what  guaranty  for  the  permanence 
of  his  opinions  ?  I  like  not  the  French  celerity,  — 
a  new  Church  and  State  once  a  week.  This  is 
the  second  negation ;  and  I  shall  let  it  pass  for 
what  it  will.  As  far  as  it  asserts  rotation  of  states 
of  mind,  I  suppose  it  suggests  its  own  remedy, 
namely  in  the  record  of  larger  periods.  What  is 
the  mean  of  many  states ;  of  all  the  states  ?  Does 
the  general  voice  of  ages  affirm  any  principle,  or  is 
no  community  of  sentiment  discoverable  in  distant 
times  and  places  ?  And  when  it  shows  the  power 
of  self-interest,  I  accept  that  as  part  of  the  divine 
law  and  must  reconcile  it  with  aspiration  the  best 
I  can. 

The  word  Fate,  or  Destiny,  expresses  the  sense 
of  mankind,  in  all  ages,  that  the  laws  of  the  world 
do  not  always  befriend,  but  often  hurt  and  crush 
us.  Fate,  in  the  shape  of  Kinde,  or  nature,  grows 
over  us  like  grass.  We  paint  Time  with  a  scythe ; 


MONTAIGNE;   OR,   THE  SKEPTIC.         169 

Love  and  Fortune,  blind  ;  and  Destiny,  deaf.  We 
have  too  little  power  of  resistance  against  this  fe 
rocity  which  champs  us  up.  What  front  can  we 
make  against  these  unavoidable,  victorious,  malefi 
cent  forces  ?  What  can  I  do  against  the  influence 
of  Eace,  in  my  history  ?  What  can  I  do  against 
hereditary  and  constitutional  habits  ;  against  scrof 
ula,  lymph,  impotence?  against  climate,  against 
barbarism,  in  my  country  ?  I  can  reason  down  or 
deny  every  thing,  except  this  perpetual  Belly  :  feed 
he  must  and  will,  and  I  cannot  make  him  respect 
able. 

But  the  main  resistance  which  the  affirmative 
impulse  finds,  and  one  including  all  others,  is  in 
the  doctrine  of  the  Illusionists.  There  is  a  pain 
ful  rumor  in  circulation  that  we  have  been  prac 
tised  upon  in  all  the  principal  performances  of  life, 
and  free  agency  is  the  emptiest  name.  We  have 
been  sopped  and  drugged  with  the  air,  with  food, 
with  woman,  with  children,  with  sciences,  with 
events,  which  leave  us  exactly  where  they  found 
us.  The  mathematics,  't  is  complained,  leave  the 
mind  where  they  find  it :  so  do  all  sciences ;  and  so 
do  all  events  and  actions.  I  find  a  man  who  has 
passed  through  all  the  sciences,  the  churl  he  was ; 
and,  through  all  the  offices,  learned,  civil  and  so 
cial,  can  detect  the  child.  We  are  not  the  less 


170  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

necessitated  to  dedicate  life  to  them.  In  fact  we 
may  come  to  accept  it  as  the  fixed  rule  and  theory 
of  our  state  of  education,  that  God  is  a  substance, 
and  his  method  is  illusion.  The  eastern  sages 
owned  the  goddess  Yoganidra,  the  great  illusory 
energy  of  Vishnu,  by  whom,  as  utter  ignorance,  the 
whole  world  is  beguiled. 

Or  shall  I  state  it  thus  ?  —  The  astonishment 
of  life  is  the  absence  of  any  appearance  of  recon 
ciliation  between  the  theory  and  practice  of  life. 
Reason,  the  prized  reality,  the  Law,  is  apprehended, 
now  and  then,  for  a  serene  and  profound  moment 
amidst  the  hubbub  of  cares  and  works  which  have 
no  direct  bearing  on  it ;  —  is  then  lost  for  months 
or  years,  and  again  found  for  an  interval,  to  be 
lost  again.  If  we  compute  it  in  time,  we  may,  in 
fifty  years,  have  half  a  dozen  reasonable  hours. 
But  what  are  these  cares  and  works  the  better? 
A  method  in  the  world  we  do  not  see,  but  this  par 
allelism  of  great  and  little,  which  never  react  on 
!  each  other,  nor  discover  the  smallest  tendency  to 
\  converge.  Experiences,  fortunes,  governings,  read 
ings,  writings,  are  nothing  to  the  purpose ;  as 
when  a  man  comes  into  the  room  it  does  not  ap 
pear  whether  he  has  been  fed  on  yams  or  buffalo, 
—  he  has  contrived  to  get  so  much  bone  and  fibre 
as  he  wants,  out  of  rice  or  out  of  snow.  So  vast  is 
the  disproportion  between  the  sky  of  law  and  the 


MONTAIGNE;   OR,   THE  SKEPTIC.         171 

pismire  of  performance  under  it,  that  whether  he 
is  a  man  of  worth  or  a  sot  is  not  so  great  a  matter 
as  we  say.  Shall  I  add,  as  one  juggle  of  this  en 
chantment,  the  stunning  non-intercourse  law  which 
makes  co-operation  impossible  ?  The  young  spirit 
pants  to  enter  society.  But  all  the  ways  of  culture 
and  greatness  lead  to  solitary  imprisonment.  He 
has  been  often  baulked.  He  did  not  expect  a  sym 
pathy  with  his  thought  from  the  village,  but  he 
went  with  it  to  the  chosen  and  intelligent,  and 
found  no  entertainment  for  it,  but  mere  misappre 
hension,  distaste  and  scoffing.  Men  are  strangely 
mistimed  and  misapplied ;  and  the  excellence  of 
each  is  an  inflamed  individualism  which  separates 
him  more. 

There  are  these,  and  more  than  these  diseases  of 
thought,  which  our  ordinary  teachers  do  not  at 
tempt  to  remove.  Now  shall  we,  because  a  good 
nature  inclines  us  to  virtue's  side,  say,  There  are 
no  doubts,  —  and  lie  for  the  right  ?  Is  life  to  be 
led  in  a  brave  or  in  a  cowardly  manner  ?  and  is 
not  the  satisfaction  of  the  doubts  essential  to  all 
manliness  ?  Is  the  name  of  virtue  to  be  a  barrier 
to  that  which  is  virtue  ?  Can  you  not  believe  that 
a  man  of  earnest  and  burly  habit  may  find  small 
good  in  tea,  essays  and  catechism,  and  want  a 
rougher  instruction,  want  men,  labor,  trade,  farm 
ing,  war,  hunger,  plenty,  love,  hatred,  doubt  and 


172  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

terror  to  make  things  plain  to  him;  and  has  he 
not  a  right  to  insist  on  being  convinced  in  his  own 
way  ?  When  he  is  convinced,  he  will  be  worth  the 
pains. 

Belief  consists  in  accepting  the  affirmations  of 
the  soul ;  unbelief,  in  denying  them.  Some  minds 
are  incapable  of  skepticism.  The  doubts  they  pro 
fess  to  entertain  are  rather  a  civility  or  accommo 
dation  to  the  common  discourse  of  their  company. 
They  may  well  give  themselves  leave  to  speculate, 
for  they  are  secure  of  a  return.  Once  admitted  to 
the  heaven  of  thought,  they  see  no  relapse  into 
night,  but  infinite  invitation  on  the  other  side. 
Heaven  is  within  heaven,  and  sky  over  sky,  and 
they  are  encompassed  with  divinities.  Others  there 
are  to  whom  the  heaven  is  brass,  and  it  shuts  down 
to  the  surface  of  the  earth.  It  is  a  question  of 
temperament,  or  of  more  or  less  immersion  in 
nature.  The  last  class  must  needs  have  a  reflex  or 
parasite  faith  ;  not  a  sight  of  realities,  but  an  in 
stinctive  reliance  on  the  seers  and  believers  of 
realities.  The  manners  and  thoughts  of  believers 
astonish  them  and  convince  them  that  these  have 
seen  something  which  is  hid  from  themselves.  But 
their  sensual  habit  would  fix  the  believer  to  his  last 
position,  whilst  he  as  inevitably  advances ;  and  pres 
ently  the  unbeliever,  for  love  of  belief,  burns  the 
believer. 


MONTAIGNE;  OR,  THE  SKEPTIC.         173 

Great  believers  are  always  reckoned  infidels,  im 
practicable,  fantastic,  atheistic,  and  really  men  of 
no  account.  The  spiritualist  finds  himself  driven 
to  express  his  faith  by  a  series  of  skepticisms. 
Charitable  souls  come  with  their  projects  and  ask 
his  co-operation.  How  can  he  hesitate  ?  It  is  the 
rule  of  mere  comity  and  courtesy  to  agree  where 
you  can,  and  to  turn  your  sentence  with  something 
auspicious,  and  not  freezing  and  sinister.  But  he 
is  forced  to  say,  4  O,  these  things  will  be  as  they 
must  be :  what  can  you  do  ?  These  particular 
griefs  and  crimes  are  the  foliage  and  fruit  of  such 
trees  as  we  see  growing.  It  is  vain  to  complain  of 
the  leaf  or  the  berry ;  cut  it  off,  it  will  bear  another 
just  as  bad.  You  must  begin  your  cure  lower 
down.'  The  generosities  of  the  day  prove  an 
intractable  element  for  him.  The  people's  ques 
tions  are  not  his  ;  their  methods  are  not  his  ;  and 
against  all  the  dictates  of  good  nature  he  is  driven 
to  say  he  has  no  pleasure  in  them. 

Even  the  doctrines  dear  to  the  hope  of  man,  of 
the  divine  Providence  and  of  the  immortality  of  the 
soul,  his  neighbors  can  not  put  the  statement  so 
that  he  shall  affirm  it.     But  he  denies  out  of  more 
faith,  and  not  less.     He  denies  out  of  honesty.     Hej 
had   rather  stand   charged   with  the  imbecility  of? 
skepticism,  than  with  untruth.     I  believe,  he  says, L 
in  the  moral  design  of  the  universe ;  it  exists  hos- 


174  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

pitably  for  the  weal  of  souls  ;  but  your  dogmas 
seem  to  me  caricatures  :  why  should  I  make  believe 
them  ?  Will  any  say,  This  is  cold  and  infidel  ? 
The  wise  and  magnanimous  will  not  say  so.  They 
will  exult  in  his  far-sighted  good-will  that  can 
abandon  to  the  adversary  all  the  ground  of  tradi 
tion  and  common  belief,  without  losing  a  jot  of 
strength.  It  sees  to  the  end  of  all  transgression. 
George  Fox  saw  that  there  was  "an  ocean  of  dark 
ness  and  death ;  but  withal  an  infinite  ocean  of 
light  and  love  which  flowed  over  that  of  dark 
ness," 

j  The  final  solution  in  which  skepticism  is  lost,  is 
in  the  moral  sentiment,  which  never  forfeits  its 
supremacy.  All  moods  may  be  safely  tried,  and 
their  weight  allowed  to  all  objections :  the  moral 
sentiment  as  easily  outweighs  them  all,  as  any  one. 
This  is  the  drop  which  balances  the  sea.  I  play 
with  the  miscellany  of  facts,  and  take  those  super 
ficial  views  which  we  call  skepticism  ;  but  I  know 
that  they  will  presently  appear  to  me  in  that  order 
which  makes  skepticism  impossible.  A  man  of 
thought  must  feel  the  thought  that  is  parent  of 
the  universe ;  that  the  masses  of  nature  do  undu 
late  and  flow. 

This  faith  avails  to  the  whole  emergency  of  life 
and  objects.  The  world  is  saturated  with  deity 
and  with  law.  He  is  content  with  just  and  unjust, 


MONTAIGNE;   OR,   THE  SKEPTIC.         175 

with  sots  and  fools,  with  the  triumph  of  folly  and 
fraud.  He  can  behold  with  serenity  the  yawning 
gulf  between  the  ambition  of  man  and  his  power 
of  performance,  between  the  demand  and  supply  of 
power,  which  makes  the  tragedy  of  all  souls. 

Charles  Fourier  announced  that  "  the  attractions 
of  man  are  proportioned  to  his  destinies ;  "  in  other 
words,  that  every  desire  predicts  its  own  satisfac 
tion.  Yet  all  experience  exhibits  the  reverse  of 
this  ;  the  incompetency  of  power  is  the  universal 
grief  of  young  and  ardent  minds.  They  accuse 
the  divine  providence  of  a  certain  parsimony.  It 
has  shown  the  heaven  and  earth  to  every  child 
and  filled  him  with  a  desire  for  the  whole ;  a  desire 
raging,  infinite  ;  a  hunger,  as  of  space  to  be  filled 
with  planets  ;  a  cry  of  famine,  as  of  devils  for 
souls.  Then  for  the  satisfaction,  —  to  each  man  is 
administered  a  single  drop,  a  bead  of  dew  of  vital 
power,  per  day,  —  a  cup  as  large  as  space,  and  one 
(Jrop  of  the  water  of  life  in  it.  Each  man  woke  in 
the  morning  with  an  appetite  that  could  eat  the 
solar  system  like  a  cake ;  a  spirit  for  action  and 
passion  without  bounds  ;  he  could  lay  his  hand  on 
the  morning  star  ;  he  could  try  conclusions  with 
gravitation  or  chemistry ;  but,  on  the  first  motion 
to  prove  his  strength,  —  hands,  feet,  senses,  gave 
way  and  would  not  serve  him.  He  was  an  emperor 
deserted  by  his  states,  and  left  to  whistle  by  him- 


176  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

self,  or  thrust  into  a  mob  of  emperors,  all  whist 
ling  :  and  still  the  sirens  sang,  "  The  attractions  are 
proportioned  to  the  destinies."  In  every  house, 
in  the  heart  of  each  maiden  and  of  each  boy,  in  the 
soul  of  the  soaring  saint,  this  chasm  is  found,  — 
between  the  largest  promise  of  jdeal  jpower,  and 
the  shabby  experience. 

The  expansive  nature  of  truth  comes  to  our  suc 
cor,  elastic,  not  to  be  surrounded.  Man  helps  him 
self  by  larger  generalizations.  The  lesson  of  life 
is  practically  to  generalize ;  to  believe  what  the 
years  and  the  centuries  say,  against  the  hours ;  to 
resist  the  usurpation  of  particulars;  to  penetrate 
to  their  catholic  sense.  Things  seem  to  say  one 
thing,  and  say  the  reverse.  The  appearance  is  im 
moral  ;  the  result  is  moral.  Things  seem  to  tend 
downward,  to  justify  despondency,  to  promote 
rogues,  to  defeat  the  just ;  and  by  knaves  as  by 
martyrs  the  just  cause  is  carried  forward.  Al 
though  knaves  win  in  every  political  struggle,  al 
though  society  seems  to  be  delivered  over  from  the 
hands  of  one  set  of  criminals  into  the  hands  of  an 
other  set  of  criminals,  as  fast  as  the  government 
is  changed,  and  the  march  of  civilization  is  a  train 
of  felonies,  —  yet,  general  ends  are  somehow  an 
swered.  We  see,  now,  events  forced  on  which 
seem  to  retard  or  retrograde  the  civility  of  ages. 
But  the  world-spirit  is  a  good  swimmer,  and  storms 


MONTAIGNE;   OR,   THE  SKEPTIC.         177 

and  waves  cannot  drown  him.  He  snaps  his  finger 
at  laws :  and  so,  throughout  history,  heaven  seems 
to  affect  low  and  poor  means.  Through  the  years 
and  the  centuries,  through  evil  agents,  through 
toys  and  atoms,  a  great  and  beneficent  tendency 
irresistibly  streams. 

Let  a  man  learn  to  look  for  the  permanent  in 
the  mutable  and  fleeting;  let  him  learn  to  bear  the 
disappearance  of  things  he  was  wont  to  reverence 
without  losing  his  reverence ;  let  him  learn  that  he 
is  here,  not  to  work  but  to  be  worked  upon  ;  and 
that,  though  abyss  open  under  abyss,  and  opinion 
displace  opinion,  all  are  at  last  contained  in  the 
Eternal  Cause :  — 

"  If  my  bark  sink,  't  is  to  another  sea." 

VOL.  IV.  12 


SHAKSPEAKE;  OR,  THE  POET. 


V. 

SHAKSPEARE;    OR,  THE   POET. 


GREAT  men  are  more  distinguished  by  range 
and  extent  than  by  originality.  If  we  require  the 
originality  which  consists  in  weaving,  like  a  spi 
der,  their  web  from  their  own  bowels ;  in  finding 
clay  and  making  bricks  and  building  the  house ;  no 
great  men  are  original.  Nor  does  valuable  origi 
nality  consist  in  unlikeness  to  other  men.  The  hero 
is  in  the  press  of  knights  and  the  thick  of  events ; 
and  seeing  what  men  want  and  sharing  their  de 
sire,  he  adds  the  needful  length  of  sight  and  of 
arm,  to  come  at  the  desired  point.  The  greatest  j 
genius  is  the  most  indebted  man.  A  poet  is  no! 
rattle-brain,  saying  what  comes  uppermost,  and,  be 
cause  he  says  every  thing,  saying  at  last  something 
good;  but  a  heart  in  unison  with  his  time  and 
country.  There  is  nothing  whimsical  and  fantas 
tic  in  his  production,  but  sweet  and  sad  earnest, 
freighted  with  the  weightiest  convictions  and  point 
ed  with  the  most  determined  aim  which  any  man 
or  class  knows  of  in  his  times. 


182  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

The  Genius  of  our  life  is  jealous  of  individuals, 
and  will  not  have  any  individual  great,  except 
through  the  general.  There  is  no  choice  to  gen 
ius.  A  great  man  does  not  wake  up  on  some  fine 
morning  and  say,  '  I  am  full  of  life,  I  will  go  to 
sea  and  find  an  Antarctic  continent :  to-day  I  will 
square  the  circle :  I  will  ransack  botany  and  find 
a  new  food  for  man  :  I  have  a  new  architecture  in 
my  mind :  I  foresee  a  new  mechanic  power :  '  no, 
but  he  finds  himself  in  the  river  of  the  thoughts 
and  events,  forced  onward  by  the  ideas  and  neces 
sities  of  his  contemporaries.  He  stands  where  all 
the  eyes  of  men  look  one  way,  and  their  hands  all 
point  in  the  direction  in  which  he  should  go.  The 
Church  has  reared  him  amidst  rites  and  pomps, 
and  he  carries  out  the  advice  which  her  music  gave 
him,  and  builds  a  cathedral  needed  by  her  chants 
and  processions.  He  finds  a  war  raging :  it  edu 
cates  him,  by  trumpet,  in  barracks,  and  he  betters 
the  instruction.  He  finds  two  counties  groping  to 
bring  coal,  or  flour,  or  fish,  from  the  place  of  pro 
duction  to  the  place  of  consumption,  and  he  hits  on 
a  railroad.  Every  master  has  found  his  materials 
collected,  and  his  power  lay  in  his  sympathy  with 
his  people  and  in  his  love  of  the  materials  he 
wrought  in.  What  an  economy  of  power  !  and 
what  a  compensation  for  the  shortness  of  life ! 
All  is  done  to  his  hand.  The  world  has  brought 


SHAKSPEARE;   OR,   THE  POET.  183 

him  thus  far  on  his  way.  The  human  race  has 
gone  out  before  him,  sunk  the  hills,  filled  the  hol 
lows  and  bridged  the  rivers.  Men,  nations,  poets, 
artisans,  women,  all  have  worked  for  him,  and  he 
enters  into  their  labors.  Choose  any  other  thing, 
out  of  the  line  of  tendency,  out  of  the  national  feel 
ing  and  history,  and  he  would  have  all  to  do  for 
himself :  his  powers  would  be  expended  in  the  first 
preparations.  Great  genial  power,  one  would  al 
most  say,  consists  in  not  being  original  at  all ;  in 
being  altogether  receptive  ;  in  letting  the  world  do  « 
all,  and  suffering  the  spirit  of  the  hour  to  pass  un 
obstructed  through  the  mind. 

Shakspeare's  youth  fell  in  a  time  when  the  Eng 
lish  people  were  importunate  for  dramatic  enter 
tainments.  The  court  took  offence  easily  at  politi 
cal  allusions  and  attempted  to  suppress  them. 
The  Puritans,  a  growing  and  energetic  party,  and 
the  religious  among  the  Anglican  church,  would 
suppress  them.  But  the  people  wanted  them. 
Inn-yards,  houses  without  roofs,  and  extempora 
neous  enclosures  at  country  fairs  were  the  ready 
theatres  of  strolling  players.  The  people  had 
tasted  this  new  joy  ;  and,  as  we  could  not  hope  to 
suppress  newspapers  now,  —  no,  not  by  the  strong 
est  party,  —  neither  then  could  king,  prelate,  or 
puritan,  alone  or  united,  suppress  an  organ  which 
was  ballad,  epic,  newspaper,  caucus,  lecture,  Punch 


184  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

and  library,  at  the  same  time.  Probably  king, 
prelate  and  puritan,  all  found  their  own  account  in 
it.  It  had  become,  by  all  causes,  a  national  inter 
est,  —  by  no  means  conspicuous,  so  that  some  great 
scholar  would  have  thought  of  treating  it  in  an 
English  history,  —  but  not  a  whit  less  considerable 
because  it  was  cheap  and  of  no  account,  like  a 
baker's-shop.  The  best  proof  of  its  vitality  is  the 
crowd  of  writers  which  suddenly  broke  into  this 
field;  Kyd,  Marlow,  Greene,  Jonson,  Chapman, 
Dekker,  Webster,  Heywood,  Middleton,  Peele, 
Ford,  Massinger,  Beaumont  and  Fletcher. 

The  secure  possession,  by  the  stage,  of  the  pub 
lic  mind,  is  of  the  first  importance  to  the  poet  who 
works  for  it.  He  loses  no  time  in  idle  experiments. 
Here  is  audience  and  expectation  prepared.  In 
the  case  of  Shakspeare  there  is  much  more.  At 
the  time  when  he  left  Stratford  and  went  up  to 
London,  a  great  body  of  stage-plays  of  all  dates 
and  writers  existed  in  manuscript  and  were  in 
turn  produced  on  the  boards.  Here  is  the  Tale  of 
Troy,  which  the  audience  will  bear  hearing  some 
part  of,  every  week ;  the  Death  of  Julius  Caesar, 
and  other  stories  out  of  Plutarch,  which  they  never 
tire  of ;  a  shelf  full  of  English  history,  from  the 
chronicles  of  Brut  and  Arthur,  down  to  the  royal 
Henries,  which  men  hear  eagerly  ;  and  a  string  of 
doleful  tragedies,  merry  Italian  tales  and  Spanish 


SHAKSPEARE;   OR,   THE  POET.  185 

voyages,  which  all  the  London  'prentices  know. 
All  the  mass  has  been  treated,  with  more  or  less 
skill,  by  every  playwright,  and  the  prompter  has  the 
soiled  and  tattered  manuscripts.  It  is  now  no 
longer  possible  to  say  who  wrote  them  first.  They 
have  been  the  property  of  the  Theatre  so  long,  and 
so  many  rising  geniuses  have  enlarged  or  altered 
them,  inserting  a  speech  or  a  whole  scene,  or  add 
ing  a  song,  that  no  man  can  any  longer  claim  copy 
right  in  this  work  of  numbers.  Happily,  no  man 
wishes  to.  They  are  not  yet  desired  in  that  way. 
We  have  few  readers,  many  spectators  and  hearers. 
They  had  best  lie  where  they  are. 

Shakspeare,  in  common  with  his  comrades,  es 
teemed  the  mass  of  old  plays  waste  stock,  in  which 
any  experiment  could  be  freely  tried.  Had  the 
prestige  which  hedges  about  a  modern  tragedy  ex 
isted,  nothing  could  have  been  done.  The  rude 
warm  blood  of  the  living  England  circulated  in  the 
play,  as  in  street-ballads,  and  gave  body  which 
he  wanted  to  his  airy  and  majestic  fancy.  The 
poet  needs  a  ground  in  popular  tradition  on  which 
he  may  work,  and  which,  again,  may  restrain  his 
art  within  the  due  temperance.  It  holds  him  to 
the  people,  supplies  a  foundation  for  his  edifice,' 
and  in  furnishing  so  much  work  done  to  his  hand, 
leaves  him  at  leisure  and  in  full  strength  for  the 
audacities  of  his  imagination.  In  short,  the  poet 


186  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

owes  to  his  legend  what  sculpture  owed  to  the  tem 
ple.  Sculpture  in  Egypt  and  in  Greece  grew  up 
in  subordination  to  architecture.  It  was  the  orna 
ment  of  the  temple  wall :  at  first  a  rude  relief 
carved  on  pediments,  then  the  relief  became  bolder 
and  a  head  or  arm  was  projected  from  the  wall  ; 
the  groups  being  still  arranged  with  reference  to 
the  building,  which  serves  also  as  a  frame  to  hold 
the  figures ;  and  when  at  last  the  greatest  freedom 
of  style  and  treatment  was  reached,  the  prevailing 
genius  of  architecture  still  enforced  a  certain  calm 
ness  and  continence  in  the  statue.  As  soon  as  the 
statue  was  begun  for  itself,  and  with  no  reference 
to  the  temple  or  palace,  the  art  began  to  decline  : 
freak,  extravagance  and  exhibition  took  the  place 
of  the  old  temperance.  This  balance-wheel,  which 
the  sculptor  found  in  architecture,  the  perilous  irri 
tability  of  poetic  talent  found  in  the  accumulated 
dramatic  materials  to  which  the  people  were  al 
ready  wonted,  and  which  had  a  certain  excellence 
which  no  single  genius,  however  extraordinary, 
could  hope  to  create. 

In  point  of  fact  it  appears  that  Shakspeare  did 
owe  debts  in  all  directions,  and  was  able  to  use 
whatever  he  found;  and  the  amount  of  indebted 
ness  may  be  inferred  from  Malone's  laborious  com 
putations  in  regard  to  the  First,  Second  and  Third 
parts  of  Henry  VI.,  in  which,  "  out  of  6,043  lines, 


SHAKSPEARE;   OR,  THE  POET.  187 

1,771  were  written  by  some  author  preceding  Shak- 
speare,  2,373  by  him,  on  the  foundation  laid  by  his 
predecessors,  and  1,899  were  entirely  his  own." 
And  the  proceeding  investigation  hardly  leaves  a* 
single  drama  of  his  absolute  invention.  Malone's 
sentence  is  an  important  piece  of  external  history. 
In  Henry  VIII.  I  think  I  see  plainly  the  cropping 
out  of  the  original  rock  on  which  his  own  finer 
stratum  was  laid.  The  first  play  was  written  by  a 
superior,  thoughtful  man,  with  a  vicious  ear.  I  can 
mark  his  lines,  and  know  well  their  cadence.  See 
Wolsey's  soliloquy,  and  the  following  scene  with 
Cromwell,  where  instead  of  the  metre  of  Shakspeare, 
whose  secret  is  that  the  thought  constructs  the  tune, 
so  that  reading  for  the  sense  will  best  bring  out 
the  rhythm,  —  here  the  lines  are  constructed  on  a 
given  tune,  and  the  verse  has  even  a  trace  of  pulpit 
eloquence.  But  the  play  contains  through  all  its 
length  unmistakable  traits  of  Shakspeare's  hand, 
and  some  passages,  as  the  account  of  the  coronation, 
are  like  autographs.  What  is  odd,  the  compliment 
to  Queen  Elizabeth  is  in  the  bad  rhythm. 

Shakspeare  knew  that  tradition  supplies  a  better 
fable  than  any  invention  can.  If  he  lost  any  credit 
of  design,  he  augmented  his  resources;  and,  at 
that  day,  our  petulent  demand  for  originality  was 
not  so  much  pressed.  There  was  no  literature  for 
the  million.  The  universal  reading,  the  cheap 


188  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

press,  were  unknown.  A  great  poet  who  appears 
in  illiterate  times,  absorbs  into  his  sphere  all  the 
light  which  is  any  where  radiating.  Every  intel 
lectual  jewel,  every  flower  of  sentiment  it  is  his  fine 
office  to  bring  to  his  people  ;  and  he  comes  to  value 
his  memory  equally  with  his  invention.  He  is 
therefore  little  solicitous  whence  his  thoughts  have 
been  derived;  whether  through  translation,  whether 
through  tradition,  whether  by  travel  in  distant  coun 
tries,  whether  by  inspiration  ;  from  whatever  source, 
they  are  equally  welcome  to  his  uncritical  audience. 
Nay,  he  borrows  very  near  home.  Other  men  say 
wise  things  as  well  as  he;  only  they  say  a  good 
many  foolish  things,  and  do  not  know  when  they 
have  spoken  wisely.  He  knows  the  sparkle  of  the 
true  stone,  and  puts  it  in  high  place,  wherever  he 
finds  it.  Such  is  the  happy  position  of  Homer  per 
haps  ;  of  Chaucer,  of  Saadi.  They  felt  that  all  wit 
was  their  wit.  And  they  are  librarians  and  his 
toriographers,  as  well  as  poets.  Each  romancer  was 
heir  and  dispenser  of  all  the  hundred  tales  of  the 
world,  — 

"  Presenting  Thebes'  and  Pelops'  line 
And  the  tale  of  Troy  divine." 

The  influence  of  Chaucer  is  conspicuous  in  all  our 
early  literature ;  and  more  recently  not  only  Pope 
and  Dryden  have  been  beholden  to  him,  but,  in  the 
whole  society  of  English  writers,  a  large  unacknowl- 


SHAKSPEARE;   OR,   THE  POET.  189 

edged  debt  is  easily  traced.  One  is  charmed  with 
the  opulence  which  feeds  so  many  pensioners.  But 
Chaucer  is  a  huge  borrower.  Chaucer,  it  seems, 
drew  continually,  through  Lydgate  and  Caxton, 
from  Guido  di  Colonna,  whose  Latin  romance  of 
the  Trojan  war  was  in  turn  a  compilation  from 
Dares  Phrygius,  Ovid  and  Statius.  Then  Petrarch, 
Boccaccio  and  the  Provencal  poets  are  his  benefac 
tors  :  the  Romaunt  of  the  Rose  is  only  judicious 
translation  from  William  of  Lorris  and  John  of 
Meung  :  Troilus  and  Creseide,  from  Lollius  of  Ur- 
bino :  The  Cock  and  the  Fox,  from  the  Lais  of 
Marie :  The  House  of  Fame,  from  the  French  or 
Italian  :  and  poor  Gower  he  uses  as  if  he  were  only 
a  brick-kiln  or  stone-quarry  out  of  which  to  build 
his  house.  He  steals  by  this  apology,  —  that  what 
he  takes  has  no  worth  where  he  finds  it  and  the 
greatest  where  he  leaves  it.  It  has  come  to  be 
practically  a  sort  of  rule  in  literature,  that  a  man 
having  once  shown  himself  capable  of  original  writ 
ing,  is  entitled  thenceforth  to  steal  from  the  writ 
ings  of  others  at  discretion.  Thought  is  the  proper 
ty  of  him  who  can  entertain  it  and  of  him  who  can 
adequately  place  it.  A  certain  awkwardness  marks 
the  use  of  borrowed  thoughts ;  but  as  soon  as  we 
have  learned  what  to  do  with  them  they  become  our 
own. 

Thus  all  originality  is  relative.    Every  thinker  is 


190  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

retrospective.  The  learned  member  of  the  legisla 
ture,  at  Westminster  or  at  Washington,  speaks  and 
votes  for  thousands.  Show  us  the  constituency,  and 
the  now  invisible  channels  by  which  the  senator  is 
made  aware  of  their  wishes ;  the  crowd  of  practical 
and  knowing  men,  who,  by  correspondence  or  con 
versation,  are  feeding  him  with  evidence,  anecdotes 
and  estimates,  and  it  will  bereave  his  fine  attitude 
and  resistance  of  something  of  their  impressiveness. 
As  Sir  Robert  Peel  and  Mr.  Webster  vote,  so 
Locke  and  Rousseau  think,  for  thousands ;  and  so 
there  were  fountains  all  around  Homer,  Menu, 
Saadi,  or  Milton,  from  which  they  drew;  friends, 
lovers,  books,  traditions,  proverbs,  —  all  perished 
—  which,  if  seen,  would  go  to  reduce  the  wonder. 
Did  the  bard  speak  with  authority  ?  Did  he  feel 
himself  overmatched  by  any  companion  ?  The  ap 
peal  is  to  the  consciousness  of  the  writer.  Is  there 
at  last  in  his  breast  a  Delphi  whereof  to  ask  con 
cerning  any  thought  or  thing,  whether  it  be  verily 
so,  yea  or  nay  ?  and  to  have  answer,  and  to  rely  on 
that?  All  the  debts  which  such  a  man  could  con 
tract  to  other  wit  would  never  disturb  his  conscious 
ness  of  originality ;  for  the  ministrations  of  books 
and  of  other  minds  are  a  whiff  of  smoke  to  that 
most  private  reality  with  which  he  has  conversed. 

It  is  easy  to  see  that  what  is  best  written  or 
done  by  genius  in  the  world,  was  no  man's  work, 


SHAKSPEARE;   OR,   THE  POET.  191 

but  came  by  wide  social  labor,  when  a  thousand 
wrought  like  one,  sharing  the  same  impulse.  Our 
English  Bible  is  a  wonderful  specimen  of  the 
strength  and  music  of  the  English  language.  But 
it  was  not  made  by  one  man,  or  at  one  time ;  but 
centuries  and  churches  brought  it  to  perfection. 
There  never  was  a  time  when  there  was  not  some  / 
translation  existing.  The  Liturgy,  admired  for  its 
energy  and  pathos,  is  an  anthology  of  the  piety  of 
ages  and  nations,  a  translation  of  the  prayers  and 
forms  of  the  Catholic  church,  —  these  collected, 
too,  in  long  periods,  from  the  prayers  and  medita 
tions  of  every  saint  and  sacred  writer  all  over  the 
world.  Grotius  makes  the  like  remark  in  respect 
to  the  Lord's  Prayer,  that  the  single  clauses  of 
which  it  is  composed  were  already  in  use  in  the 
time  of  Christ,  in  the  Rabbinical  forms.  He 
picked  out  the  grains  of  gold.  The  nervous  lan 
guage  of  the  Common  Law,  the  impressive  forms 
of  our  courts  and  the  precision  and  substantial 
truth  of  the  legal  distinctions,  are  the  contribution 
of  all  the  sharp-sighted,  strong-minded  men  who 
have  lived  in  the  countries  where  these  laws  gov 
ern.  The  translation  of  Plutarch  gets  its  excel 
lence  by  being  translation  on  translation.  There 
never  was  a  time  when  there  was  none.  All  the 
truly  idiomatic  and  national  phrases  are  kept,  and 
all  others  successively  picked  out  and  thrown  away. 


192  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

Something  like  the  same  process  had  gone  on,  long 
before,  with  the  originals  of  these  books.  The 
world  takes  liberties  with  world -books.  Vedas, 
2Esop's  Fables,  Pilpay,  Arabian  Nights,  Cid,  Ili 
ad,  Robin  Hood,  Scottish  Minstrelsy,  are  not  the 
work  of  single  men.  In  the  composition  of  such 
works  the  time  thinks,  the  market  thinks,  the  ma 
son,  the  carpenter,  the  merchant,  the  farmer,  the 
fop,  all  think  for  us.  Every  book  supplies  its  time 
with  one  good  word  ;  every  municipal  law,  every 
trade,  every  folly  of  the  day ;  and  the  generic  cath 
olic  genius  who  is  not  afraid  or  ashamed  to  owe  his 
originality  to  the  originality  of  all,  stands  with  the 
next  age  as  the  recorder  and  embodiment  of  his 
own. 

We  have  to  thank  the  researches  of  antiquaries, 
and  the  Shakspeare  Society,  for  ascertaining  the 
steps  of  the  English  drama,  from  the  Mysteries 
celebrated  in  churches  and  by  churchmen,  and  the 
final  detachment  from  the  church,  and  the  comple 
tion  of  secular  plays,  from  Ferrex  and  Porrex,  and 
Gammer  Gurton's  Needle,  down  to  the  possession 
of  the  stage  by  the  very  pieces  which  Shakspeare 
altered,  remodelled  and  finally  made  his  own. 
Elated  with  success  and  piqued  by  the  growing 
interest  of  the  problem,  they  have  left  no  book 
stall  unsearched,  no  chest  in  a  garret  unopened, 
no  file  of  old  yellow  accounts  to  decompose  in 


SIIAKSPEARE;   OR,   THE  POET.  193 

damp  and  worms,  so  keen  was  the  hope  to  dis 
cover  whether  the  boy  Shakspeare  poached  or  not, 
whether  he  held  horses  at  the  theatre  door,  whether 
he  kept  school,  and  why  he  left  in  his  will  only  his 
second-best  bed  to  Ann  Hathaway,  his  wife. 

There  is  somewhat  touching-  in  the  madness  with 
which  the  passing  age  mischooses  the  object  on 
which  all  candles  shine  and  all  eyes  are  turned  ; 
the  care  with  which  it  registers  every  trifle  touch 
ing  Queen  Elizabeth  and  King  James,  and  the 
Essexes,  Leicesters,  Burleighs  and  Buckinghams; 
and  lets  pass  without  a  single  valuable  note  the 
founder  of  another  dynasty,  which  alone  will  cause 
the  Tudor  dynasty  to  be  remembered,  —  the  man  f 
who  carries  the  Saxon  race  in  hini  by  the  inspira< 
tion  which  feeds  him,  and  on  whose  thoughts  the 
foremost  people  of  the  world  are  now  for  some  ages 
to  be  nourished,  and  minds  to  receive  this  and  not 
another  bias.  A  popular  player ;  —  nobody  sus 
pected  he  was  the  poet  of  the  human  race ;  and  the 
secret  was  kept  as  faithfully  from  poets  and  intel 
lectual  men  as  from  courtiers  and  frivolous  people. 
Bacon,  who  took  the  inventory  of  the  human  un 
derstanding  for  his  times,  never  mentioned  his 
name.  Ben  Jonson,  though  we  have  strained  his 
few  words  of  regard  and  panegyric,  had  no  suspi 
cion  of  the  elastic  fame  whose  first  vibrations  he 
was  attempting.  He  no  doubt  thought  the  praise 

VOL.  IV.  13 


194  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

he  has  conceded  to  him  generous,  and  esteemed 
himself,  out  of  all  question,  the  better  poet  of  the 
two. 

If  it  need  wit  to  know  wit,  according  to  the  prov 
erb,  Shakspeare's  time  should  be  capable  of  recog 
nizing  it.  Sir  Henry  Wotton.  was  born  four  years 
after  Shakspeare,  and  died  twenty-three  years  after 
him ;  and  I  find,  among  his  correspondents  and 
acquaintances,  the  following  persons :  Theodore 
Beza,  Isaac  Casaubon,  Sir  Philip  Sidney,  the 
Earl  of  Essex,  Lord  Bacon,  Sir  Walter  Raleigh, 
John  Milton,  Sir  Henry  Vane,  Isaac  Walton,  Dr. 
Donne,  Abraham  Cowley,  Bellarmine,  Charles 
Cotton,  John  Pym,  John  Hales,  Kepler,  Vieta,  Al- 
bericus  GentilLs,  Paul  Sarpi,  Arminius ;  with  all 
of  whom  exists  some  token  of  his  having  commu 
nicated,  without  enumerating  many  others  whom 
doubtless  he  saw,  —  Shakspeare,  Spenser,  Jonson, 
Beaumont,  Massinger,  the  two  Herberts,  Marlow, 
Chapman  and  the  rest.  Since  the  constellation  of 
great  men  who  appeared  in  Greece  in  the  time  of 
Pericles,  there  was  never  any  such  society  ;  —  yet 
their  genius  failed  them  to  find  out  the  best  head 
in  the  universe.  Our  poet's  mask  was  impenetra 
ble.  You  cannot  see  the  mountain  near.  It  took 
a  century  to  make  it  suspected  ;  and  not  until  two 
centuries  had  passed,  after  his  death,  did  any  criti 
cism  which  we  think  adequate  begin  to  appear.  It 


SIIAKSPEARE;   OR,   THE  POET.  195 

was  not  possible  to  write  the  history  of  Shakspeare 
till  now ;  for  he  is  the  father  of  German  literature  : 
it  was  with  the  introduction  of  Shakspeare  into 
German,  by  Lessing,  and  the  translation  of  his 
works  by  Wieland  and  Schlegel,  that  the  rapid 
burst  of  German  literature  was  most  intimately 
connected.  It  was  not  until  the  nineteenth  cen 
tury,  whose  speculative  genius  is  a  sort  of  living 
Hamlet,  that  the  tragedy  of  Hamlet  could  find 
such  wondering  readers.  Now,  literature,  philoso 
phy  and  thought,  are  Shakspearized.  His  mind 
is  the  horizon  beyond  which,  at  present,  we  do 
not  see.  Our  ears  are  educated  to  music  by  his 
rhythm.  Coleridge  and  Goethe  are  the  only  crit 
ics  wrho  have  expressed  our  convictions  with  any 
adequate  fidelity  :  but  there  is  in  all  cultivated 
minds  a  silent  appreciation  of  his  superlative  power 
and  beauty,  which,  like  Christianity,  qualifies  the 
period. 

The  Shakspeare  Society  have  inquired  in  all  di 
rections,  advertised  the  missing  facts,  offered  money  '• 
for  any  information  that  will  lead  to  proof,  —  and 
with  what  result  ?  Beside  some  important  illustra 
tion  of  the  history  of  the  English  stage,  to  which  I 
have  adverted,  they  have  gleaned  a  few  facts 
touching  the  property,  and  dealings  in  regard  to 
property,  of  the  poet.  It  appears  that  from  year 
to  year  he  owned  a  larger  share  in  the  Blackfriars' 


196  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

Theatre:  its  wardrobe  and  other  appurtenances 
were  his  :  that  he  bought  an  estate  in  his  native  vil 
lage  with  his  earnings  as  writer  and  shareholder  ; 
that  he  lived  in  the  best  house  in  Stratford  ;  was 
intrusted  by  his  neighbors  with  their  commissions 
in  London,  as  of  borrowing  money,  and  the  like  ; 
that  he  was  a  veritable  farmer.  About  the  time 
when  he  was  writing  Macbeth,  he  sues  Philip  Rog 
ers,  in  the  borough-court  of  Stratford,  for  thirty- 
five  shillings,  ten  pence,  for  corn  delivered  to  him 
at  different  times ;  and  in  all  respects  appears  as  a 
good  husband,  with  no  reputation  for  eccentricity 
or  excess.  He  was  a  good-natured  sort  of  man, 
an  actor  and  shareholder  in  the  theatre,  not  in  any 
striking  manner  distinguished  from  other  actors 
and  managers.  I  admit  the  importance  of  this  in 
formation.  It  was  well  worth  the  pains  that  have 
been  taken  to  procure  it. 

But  whatever  scraps  of  information  concerning 
his  condition  these  researches  may  have  rescued, 
they  can  shed  no  light  upon  that  infinite  invention 
which  is  the  concealed  magnet  of  his  attraction  for 
us.  We  are  very  clumsy  writers  of  history.  We 
tell  the  chronicle  of  parentage,  birth,  birth-place, 
schooling,  school-mates,  earning  of  money,  mar 
riage,  publication  of  books,  celebrity,  death  ;  and 
when  we  have  come  to  an  end  of  this  gossip,  no 
ray  of  relation  appears  between  it  and  the  goddess- 


SHAKSPEARE;   OR,   THE  POET.  197 

born ;  and  it  seems  as  if,  had  we  dipped  at  random 
into  the  "  Modern  Plutarch."  and  read  any  other 
life  there,  it  would  have  fitted  the  poems  as  well. 
It  is  the  essence  of  poetry  to  spring,  like  the  rain 
bow  daughter  of  Wonder,  from  the  invisible,  to 
abolish  the  past  and  refuse  all  history.  Malone, 
Warburton,  Dyce  and  Collier,  have  wasted  their  oil. 
The  famed  theatres,  Covent  Garden,  Drury  Lane, 
the  Park  and  Tremont  have  vainly  assisted.  Bet- 
terton,  Garrick,  Kemble,  Kean  and  Macready  ded 
icate  their  lives  to  this  genius ;  him  they  crown, 
elucidate,  obey  and  express.  The  genius  knows 
them  not.  The  recitation  begins  ;  one  golden  word 
leaps  out  immortal  from  all  this  painted  pedantry 
and  sweetly  torments  us  with  invitations  to  its  own 
inaccessible  homes.  I  remember  I  went  once  to 
see  the  Hamlet  of  a  famed  performer,  the  pride  of 
the  English  stage  ;  and  all  I  then  heard  and  all  I 
now  remember  of  the  tragedian  was  that  in  which 
the  tragedian  had  no  part ;  simply  Hamlet's  ques 
tion  to  the  ghost :  — 

"  What  may  this  mean, 

That  them,  dead  corse,  again  in  complete  steel 
Revisit'st  thus  the  glimpses  of  the  moon  ?  " 

That  imagination  which  dilates  the  closet  he  writes 
in  to  the  world's  dimension,  crowds  it  with  agents 
in  rank  and  order,  as  quickly  reduces  the  big  real 
ity  to  be  the  glimpses  of  the  moon.  These  tricks 


198  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

of  his  magic  spoil  for  us  the  illusions  of  the  green 
room.  Can  any  biography  shed  light  on  the  local 
ities  into  which  the  Midsummer  Night's  Dream  ad 
mits  me  ?  Did  Shakspeare  confide  to  any  notary 
or  parish  recorder,  sacristan,  or  surrogate  in  Strat 
ford,  the  genesis  of  that  delicate  creation  ?  The 
forest  of  Arden,  the  nimble  air  of  Scone  Castle, 
the  moonlight  of  Portia's  villa,  "  the  antres  vast 
and  desarts  idle  "  of  Othello's  captivity,  —  where 
is  the  third  cousin,  or  grand-nephew,  the  chancel 
lor's  file  of  accounts,  or  private  letter,  that  has 
kept  one  word  of  those  transcendent  secrets  ?  In 
fine,  in  this  drama,  as  in  all  great  works  of  art,  — 
in  the  Cyclopean  architecture  of  Egypt  and  India, 
in  the  Phidian  sculpture,  the  Gothic  minsters,  the 
Italian  painting,  the  Ballads  of  Spain  and  Scot 
land,  —  the  Genius  draws  up  the  ladder  after  him, 
when  the  creative  age  goes  up  to  heaven,  and  gives 
way  to  a  new  age,  which  sees  the  works  and  asks 
in  vain  for  a  history. 

Shakspeare  is  the  only  biographer  of  Shak 
speare  ;  and  even  he  can  tell  nothing,  except  to  the 
Shakspeare  in  us,  that  is,  to  our  most  apprehen 
sive  and  sympathetic  hour.  He  cannot  step  from 
off  his  tripod  and  give  us  anecdotes  of  his  inspi 
rations.  Read  the  antique  documents  extricated, 
analyzed  and  compared  by  the  assiduous  Dyce 
and  Collier,  and  now  read  one  of  these  skyey 


SIIAKSPEARE;   OR,   THE  POET.  199 

sentences,  —  aerolites,  —  which  seem  to  have  fallen 
out  of  heaven,  and  which  not  your  experience  but 
the  man  within  the  breast  has  accepted  as  words 
of  fate,  and  tell  me  if  they  match ;  if  the  former 
account  in  any  manner  for  the  latter;  or  which 
gives  the  most  historical  insight  into  the  man. 

Hence,  though  our  external  history  is  so  meagre, 
yet,  with  Shakspeare  for  biographer,  instead  of 
Aubrey  and  Eowe,  we  have  really  the  information, 
which  is  material;  that  which  describes  character 
and  fortune,  that  which,  if  we  were  about  to  meet 
the  man  and  deal  with  him,  would  most  import 
us  to  know.  We  have  his  recorded  convictions 
on  those  questions  which  knock  for  answer  at  every 
heart,  —  on  life  and  death,  on  love,  on  wealth  and 
poverty,  on  the  prizes  of  life  and  the  ways  whereby  J  ' 
we  come  at  them  ;  on  the  characters  of  men,  and 
the  influences,  occult  and  open,  which  affect  their 
fortunes ;  and  on  those  mysterious  and  demoniacal 
powers  which  defy  our  science  and  which  yet  in 
terweave  their  malice  and  their  gift  in  our  bright 
est  hours.  Who  ever  read  the  volume  of  the 
Sonnets  without  finding  that  the  poet  had  there 
revealed,  under  masks  that  are  no  masks  to  the 
intelligent,  the  lore  of  friendship  and  of  love ;  the 
confusion  of  sentiments  in  the  most  susceptible,  v 
and,  at  the  same  time,  the  most  intellectual  of 
men?  What  trait  of  his  private  mind  has  he 


200  REPRESENTATIONS  MEN. 

hidden  in  his  dramas?  One  can  discern,  in  his 
ample  pictures  of  the  gentleman  and  the  king, 
what  forms  and  humanities  pleased  him  ;  his  de 
light  in  troops  of  friends,  in  large  hospitality,  in 
cheerful  giving.  Let  Timon,  let  Warwick,  let 
Antonio  the  merchant  answer  for  his  great  heart. 
So  far  from  Shakspeare's  being  the  least  known, 
he  is  the  one  person,  in  all  modern  history,  known 
to  us.  What  point  of  morals,  of  manners,  of 
economy,  of  philosophy,  of  religion,  of  taste,  of 
the  conduct  of  life,  has  he  not  settled?  What 
mystery  has  he  not  signified  his  knowledge  of? 
What  office,  or  function,  or  district  of  man's 
work,  has  he  not  remembered  ?  What  king  has 
he  not  taught  state,  as  Talma  taught  Napoleon  ? 
What  maiden  has  not  found  him  finer  than  her 
delicacy?  What  lover  has  he  not  outloved? 
What  sage  has  he  not  outseen  ?  What  gentleman 
has  he  not  instructed  in  the  rudeness  of  his  be 
havior  ? 

Some  able  and  appreciating  critics  think  no 
criticism  on  Shakspeare  valuable  that  does  not 
rest  purely  on  the  dramatic  merit ;  that  he  is 
falsely  judged  as  poet  and  philosopher.  I  think 
as  highly  as  these  critics  of  his  dramatic  merit, 
but  still  think  it  secondary.  He  was  a  full  man, 
who  liked  to  talk  ;  a  brain  exhaling  thoughts  and 
images,  which,  seeking  vent,  found  the  drama  next 


SIIAKSPEARE;  07?,    THE  POET.  201 

at  hand.  Had  lie  been  less,  we  should  have  had 
to  consider  how  well  he  filled  his  place,  how  good 
a  dramatist  he  was,  —  and  he  is  the  best  in  the 
world.  But  it  turns  out  that  what  he  has  to 
say  is  of  that  weight  as  to  withdraw  some  attention 
from  the  vehicle ;  and  he  is  like  some  saint  whose 
history  is  to  be  rendered  into  all  languages,  into 
verse  and  prose,  into  songs  and  pictures,  and  cut 
up  into  proverbs ;  so  that  the  occasion  which  gave 
the  saint's  meaning  the  form  of  a  conversation,  or 
of  a  prayer,  or  of  a  code  of  laws,  is  immaterial 
compared  with  the  universality  of  its  application. 
So  it  fares  with  the  wise  Shakspeare  and  his  book 
of  life.  He  wrote  the  airs  for  all  our  modern 
music :  he  wrote  the  text  of  modern  life ;  the  text 
of  manners:  he  drew  the  man  of  England  and 
Europe ;  the  father  of  the  man  in  America ;  he 
drew  the  man,  and  described  the  day,  and  what  is 
done  in  it :  he  read  the  hearts  of  men  and  women, 
their  probity,  and  their  second  thought  and  wiles ; 
the  wiles  of  innocence,  and  the  transitions  by 
which  virtues  and  vices  slide  into  their  contraries : 
he  could  divide  the  mother's  part  from  the  father's 
part  in  the  face  of  the  child,  or  draw  the  fine 
demarcations  of  freedom  and  of  fate :  he  knew 
the  laws  of  repression  which  make  the  police  of 
nature :  and  all  the  sweets  and  all  the  terrors  of 
human  lot  lay  in  his  mind  as  truly  but  as  softly 


202  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

as  the  landscape  lies  on  the  eye.  And  the  impor 
tance  of  this  wisdom  of  life  sinks  the  form.,  as  of 
Drama  or  Epic,  out  of  notice.  '  T  is  like  making 
a  question  concerning  the  paper  on  which  a  king's 
message  is  written. 

Shakspeare  is  as  much  out  of  the  category  of 
eminent  authors,  as  he  is  out  of  the  crowd.  He 
is  inconceivably  wise  ;  the  others,  conceivably.  A 
good  reader  can,  in  a  sort,  nestle  into  Plato's  brain 
and  think  from  thence ;  but  not  into  Shakspeare' s. 
We  are  still  out  of  doors.  For  executive  faculty, 
for  creation,  Shakspeare  is  unique.  No  man  can 
imagine  it  better.  He  was  the  farthest  reach  of 
subtlety  compatible  with  an  individual  self,  —  the 
subtilest  of  authors,  and  only  just  within  the  pos 
sibility  of  authorship.  With  this  wisdom  of  life 
is  the  equal  endowment  of  imaginative  and  of 
lyric  power.  He  clothed  the  creatures  of  his 
legend  with  form  and  sentiments  as  if  they  were 
people  who  had  lived  under  his  roof;  and, few 
real  men  have  left  such  distinct  characters  as  these 
fictions.  And  they  spoke  in  language  as  sweet 
as  it  was  fit.  Yet  his  talents  never  seduced  him 
into  an  ostentation,  nor  did  he  harp  on  one  string. 
An  omnipresent  humanity  co-ordinates  all  his  fac 
ulties.  Give  a  man  of  talents  a  story  to  tell,  and 
his  partiality  will  presently  appear.  He  has  cer 
tain  observations,  opinions,  topics,  which  have 


SIIAKSPEARE;   OR,   THE  POET.  203 

some  accidental  prominence,  and  which  he  dis 
poses  all  to  exhibit.  He  crams  this  part  and 
starves  that  other  part,  consulting  not  the  fitness  ^ 
of  the  thing,  but  his  fitness  and  strength.  But 
Shakspeare  has  no  peculiarity,  no  importunate 
topic  ;  but  all  is  duly  given ;  no  veins,  no  curiosi 
ties ;  no  cow-painter,  no  bird-fancier,  no  manner 
ist  is  he :  he  has  no  discoverable  egotism :  the 
great  he  tells  greatly ;  the  small  subordinately. 
He  is  wise  without  emphasis  or  assertion ;  he  is 
strong,  as  nature  is  strong,  who  lifts  the  land  into 
mountain  slopes  without  effort  and  by  the  same 
rule  as  she  floats  a  bubble  in  the  air,  and  likes  as 
well  to  do  the  one  as  the  other.  This  makes  that 
equality  of  power  in  farce,  tragedy,  narrative  and 
love-songs ;  a  merit  so  incessant  that  each  reader 
is  incredulous  of  the  perception  of  other  readers. 

This  power  of  expression,  or  of  transferring  the 
inmost  truth  of  things  into  music  and  verse,  makes 
him  the  type  of  the  poet  and  has  added  a  new 
problem  to  metaphysics.  This  is  that  which  throws 
him  into  natural  history,  as  a  main  production  of 
the  globe,  and  as  announcing  new  eras  and  amelio 
rations.  Things  were  mirrored  in  his  poetry  with 
out  loss  or  blur :  he  could  paint  the  fine  with  pre 
cision,  the  great  with  compass,  the  tragic  and  the 
comic  indifferently  and  without  any  distortion  or 
favor.  He  carried  his  powerful  execution  into 


204  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

minute  details,  to  a  hair  point ;  finishes  an  eyelash 
or  a  dimple  as  firmly  as  he  draws  a  mountain ;  and 
yet  these,  like  nature's,  will  bear  the  scrutiny  of 
the  solar  microscope. 

In  short,  he  is  the  chief  example  to  prove  that 
more  or  less  of  production,  more  or  fewer  pictures, 
is  a  thing  indifferent.  He  had  the  power  to  make 
one  picture.  Daguerre  learned  how  to  let  one 
flower  etch  its  image  on  his  plate  of  iodine,  and 
then  proceeds  at  leisure  to  etch  a  million.  There 
are  always  objects  ;  but  there  was  never  represen 
tation.  Here  is  perfect  representation,  at  last ;  and 
now  let  the  world  of  figures  sit  for  their  portraits. 
No  recipe  can  be  given  for  the  making  of  a  Shaks- 
peare ;  but  the  possibility  of  the  translation  of 
things  into  song  is  demonstrated. 

His  lyric  power  lies  in  the  genius  of  the  piece. 
The  sonnets,  though  their  excellence  is  lost  in  the 
splendor  of  the  dramas,  are  as  inimitable  as  they; 
and  it  is  not  a  merit  of  lines,  but  a  total  merit  of 
the  piece ;  like  the  tone  of  voice  of  some  incom 
parable  person,  so  is  this  a  speech  of  poetic  beings, 
and  any  clause  as  unproducible  now  as  a  whole 
poem. 

Though  the  speeches  in  the  plays,  and  single 
lines,  have  a  beauty  which  tempts  the  ear  to  pause 
on  them  for  their  euphuism,  yet  the  sentence  is 
so  loaded  with  meaning  and ,  so  linked  with  its 


SHAKSPEARE;   OR,   THE  POET.  205 

foregoers  and  followers,  that  the  logician  is  satis 
fied.  His  means  are  as  admirable  as  his  ends  ; 
every  subordinate  invention,  by  which  he  helps 
himself  to  connect  some  irreconcilable  opposites, 
is  a  poem  too.  He  is  not  reduced  to  dismount  and 
walk  because  his  horses  are  running  off  with  him 
in  some  distant  direction  :  he  always  rides. 

The  finest  poetry  was  first  experience ;  but  the 
thought  has  suffered  a  transformation  since  it  was 

O 

an  experience.  Cultivated  men  often  attain  a  good 
degree  of  skill  in  writing  verses  ;  but  it  is  easy  to 
read,  through  their  poems,  their  personal  history : 
any  one  acquainted  with  the  parties  can  name  every 
figure  ;  this  is  Andrew  and  that  is  Eachel.  The 
sense  thus  remains  prosaic.  It  is  a  caterpillar 
with  wings,  and  not  yet  a  butterfly.  In  the  poet's 
mind  the  fact  has  gone  quite  over  into  the  new 
element  of  thought,  and  has  lost  all  that  is  exuvial. 
This  generosity  abides  with  Shakspeare.  We  say, 
from  the  truth  and  closeness  of  his  pictures,  that  he 
knows  the  lesson  by  heart.  Yet  there  is  not  a 
trace  of  egotism. 

One  more  royal  trait  properly  belongs  to  the 
poet.  I  mean  his  cheerfulness,  without  which  no 
man  can  be  a  poet,  —  for  beauty  is  his  aim.  He 
loves  virtue,  not  for  its  obligation  but  for  its  grace : 
he  delights  in  the  world,  in  man,  in  woman,  for  the 
lovely  light  that  sparkles  from  them.  Beauty,  the 


206  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

spirit  of  joy  and  hilarity,  he  sheds  over  the  uni 
verse.  Epicurus  relates  that  poetry  hath  such 
charms  that  a  lover  might  forsake  his  mistress  to 
partake  of  them.  And  the  true  bards  have  been 
noted  for  their  firm  and  cheerful  temper.  Homer 
lies  in  sunshine;  Chaucer  is  glad  and  erect;  and 
Saadi  says,  "  It  was  rumored  abroad  that  I  was 
penitent ;  but  what  had  I  to  do  with  repentence  ?  " 
Not  less  sovereign  and  cheerful,  —  much  more  sov 
ereign  and  cheerful,  is  the  tone  of  Shakspeare. 
His  name  suggests  joy  and  emancipation'  to  the 
heart  of  men.  If  he  should  appear  in  any  com 
pany  of  human  souls,  who  would  not  march  in  his 
troop  ?  He  touches  nothing  that  does  not  borrow 
health  and  longevity  from  his  festal  style. 

And  now,  how  stands  the  acQount  of  man  with 
this  bard  and  benefactor,  when,  in  solitude,  shut 
ting  our  ears  to  the  reverberations  of  his  fame,  we 
seek  to  strike  the  balance  ?  Solitude  has  austere 
lessons  ;  it  can  teach  us  to  spare  both  heroes  and 
poets;  and  it  weighs  Shakspeare  also,  and  finds  him 
to  share  the  half  ness  and  imperfection  of  humanity. 

Shakspeare,  Homer,  Dante,  Chaucer,  saw  the 
splendor  of  meaning  that  plays  over  the  visible 
world  ;  knew  that  a  tree  had  another  use  than  for 
apples,  and  corn  another  than  for  meal,  and  the 
ball  of  the  earth,  than  for  tillage  and  roads :  that 


SHAKSPEARE;   OR,   THE  POET.  207 

these  things  bore  a  second  and  finer  harvest  to  the 
mind,  being  emblems  of  its  thoughts,  and  convey 
ing  in  all  their  natural  history  a  certain  mute 
commentary  on  human  life.  Shakspeare  employed 
them  as  colors  to  compose  his  picture.  He  rested 
in  their  beauty  ;  and  never  took  the  step  which 
seemed  inevitable  to  such  genius,  namely  to  explore 
the  virtue  which  resides  in  these  symbols  and  im 
parts  this  power  :  —  what  is  that  which  they  them 
selves  say?  He  converted  the  elements  which 
waited  on  his  command,  into  entertainments.  He 
was  master  of  the  revels  to  mankind.  Is  it  not  as 
if  one  should  have,  through  majestic  powers  of 
science,  the  comets  given  into  his  hand,  or  the 
planets  and  their  moons,  and  should  draw  them 
from  their  orbits  to  glare  with  the  municipal  fire 
works  on  a  holiday  night,  and  advertise  in  all 
towns,  "  Very  superior  pyrotechny  this  evening  ?  " 
Are  the  agents  of  nature,  and  the  power  to  under 
stand  them,  worth  no  more  than  a  street  serenade, 
or  the  breath  of  a  cigar  ?  One  remembers  again 
the  trumpet-text  in  the  Koran,  —  "  The  heavens 
and  the  earth  and  all  that  is  between  them,  think 
ye  we  have  created  them  in  jest?"  As  long  as  the 
question  is  of  talent  and  mental  power,  the  world 
of  men  has  not  his  equal  to  show.  But  when  the 
question  is,  to  life  and  its  materials  and  its  auxili 
aries,  how  does  he  profit  me  ?  What  does  it  sig- 


208  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

nify?  It  is  but  a  Twelfth  Night,  or  Midsummer- 
Night's  Dream,  or  Winter  Evening's  Tale :  what  sig 
nifies  another  picture  more  or  less  ?  The  Egyptian 
verdict  of  the  Shakspeare  Societies  comes  to  mind ; 
that  he  was  a  jovial  actor  and  manager.  I  can  not 
marry  this  fact  to  his  verse.  Other  admirable  men 
have  led  lives  in  some  sort  of  keeping  with  their 
thought ;  but  this  man,  in  wide  contrast.  Had  he 
been  less,  had  he  reached  only  the  common  measure 
of  great  authors,  of  Bacon,  Milton,  Tasso,  Cervantes, 
we  might  leave  the  fact  in  the  twilight  of  human 
fate :  but  that  this  man  of  men,  he  who  gave  to  the 
science  of  mind  a  new  and  larger  subject  than  had 
ever  existed,  and  planted  the  standard  of  humanity 
some  furlongs  forward  into  Chaos,  —  that  he  should 
not  be  wise  for  himself  ;  —  it  must  even  go  into  the 
world's  history  that  the  best  poet  led  an  obscure 
and  profane  life,  using  his  genius  for  the  public 
amusement. 

Well,  other  men,  priest  and  prophet,  Israelite, 
German  and  Swede,  beheld  the  same  objects  :  they 
also  saw  through  them  that  which  was  contained. 
And  to  what  purpose?  The  beauty  straightway 
vanished ;  they  read  commandments,  all-excluding 
mountainous  duty;  an  obligation,  a  sadness,  as  of 
piled  mountains,  fell  on  them,  and  life  became 
ghastly,  joyless,  a  pilgrim's  progress,  a  probation, 
beleaguered  round  with  doleful  histories  of  Adam's 


SHAKSPEARE;   OR,   THE  POET.  209 

fall  and  curse  behind  us ;  with  doomsdays  and  pur 
gatorial  and  penal  fires  before  us  ;  and  the  heart 
of  the  seer  and  the  heart  of  the  listener  sank  in 
•them. 

It  must  be  conceded  that  these  are  half-views  of 
half-men.  The  world  still  wants  its  poet-priest,  a 
reconciler,  who  shall  not  trifle  with  Shakspeare  the 
player,  nor  shall  grope  in  graves  with  Swedenborg 
the  mourner ;  but  who  shall  see,  speak,  and  act,  with 
equal  inspiration.  For  knowledge  will  brighten 
the  sunshine  ;  right  is  more  beautiful  than  private 
affection ;  and  love  is  compatible  with  universal 
wisdom. 

VOL.   IV.  14 


NAPOLEON;  OR,  THE  MAN  OF  THE 
WORLD. 


vi: 

NAPOLEON;  OE,  THE  MAN  OF  THE 
WORLD. 


AMONG  the  eminent  persons  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  Bonaparte  is  far  the  best  known  and  the 
most  powerful;  and  owes  his  predominance  to 
the  fidelity  with  which  he  expresses  the  tone  of 
thought  and  belief,  the  aims  of  the  masses  of 
active  and  cultivated  men.  It  is  Swedenborg's 
theory  that  every  organ  is  made  up  of  homogene 
ous  particles ;  or,  as  it  is  sometimes  expressed, 
every  whole  is  made  of  similars ;  that  is,  the  lungs 
are  composed  of  infinitely  small  lungs ;  the  liver, 
of  infinitely  small  livers ;  the  kidney,  of  little 
kidneys,  &c.  Following  this  analogy,  if  any  man 
is  found  to  carry  with  him  the  power  and  affec 
tions  of  vast  numbers,  if  Napoleon  is  France,  if 
Napoleon  is  Europe,  it  is  because  the  people  whom 
he  sways,  are  little  Napoleons. 

In  our  society,  there  is  a  standing  antagonism 
between  the  conservative  and  the  democratic 
classes ;  between  those  who  have  made  their 


214  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

fortunes,  and  the  young  and  the  poor  who  have 
fortunes  to  make  ;  between  the  interests  of  dead 
labor,  —  that  is,  the  labor  of  hands  long  ago  still 
in  the  grave,  which  labor  is  now  entombed  in 
money  stocks,  or  in  land  and  buildings  owned  by 
idle  capitalists,  —  and  the  interests  of  living  labor, 
which  seeks  to  possess  itself  of  land  and  buildings 
and  money  stocks.  \  The  first  class  is  timid,  self 
ish,  illiberal,  hating  innovation,  and  continually 
losing  numbers  by  death.  The  second  class  is 
selfish  also,  encroaching,  bold,  self-relying,  always 
outnumbering  the  other  and  recruiting  its  num 
bers  every  hour  by  births.  It  desires  to  keep 
open  every  avenue  to  the  competition  of  all,  and 
to  multiply  avenues  ^  the  class  of  business  men  in 
America,  in  England,  in  France  and  throughout 
Europe ;  the  class  of  industry  and  skill.  Napo 
leon  is  its  representative.  The  instinct  of  ac 
tive,  brave,  able  men,  throughout  the  middle  class 
every  where,  has  pointed  out  Napoleon  as  the  in 
carnate  Democrat.  He  had  their  virtues  and  their 
vices;  above  all,  he  had  their  spirit  or  aim.  \That 
tendency  is  material,  pointing  at  a  sensual  suc 
cess  and  employing  the  richest  and  most  various 
means  to  that  end ;  conversant  with  mechanical 
powers,  highly  intellectual,  widely  and  accurately 
learned  and  skilful,  but  subordinating  all  intel 
lectual  and  spiritual  forces  into  means  to  a  mate- 


NAPOLEON;   OR,  THE  MAN  OF  THE  WORLD.    215 

rial  success.  To  be  the  rich  man,  is  the  end. 
"  God  has  granted,"  says  the  Koran,  "  to  every 
people  a  prophet  in  its  own  tongue."  Paris  and 
London  and  New  York,  the  spirit  of  commerce,  of 
money  and  material  power,  were  also  to  have  their 
prophet ;  and  Bonaparte  was  qualified  and  sent. 

Every  one  of  the  million  readers  of  anecdotes 
or  memoirs  or  lives  of  Napoleon,  delights  in  the 
page,  because  he  studies  in  it  his  own  history. 
Napoleon  is  thoroughly  modern,  and,  at  the  high 
est  point  of  his  fortunes,  has  the  very  spirit  of 
the  newspapers.  He  is  no  saint,  —  to  use  his 
own  word,  "  no  capuchin,"  and  he  is  no  hero,  in 
the  high  sense.  The  man  in  the  street  finds  in 
him  the  qualities  and  powers  of  other  men  in  the 
street.  He  finds  him,  like  himself,  by  birth  a 
citizen,  who,  by  very  intelligible  merits,  arrived 
at  such  a  commanding  position  that  he  could  in 
dulge  all  those  tastes  which  the  common  man 
possesses  but  is  obliged  to  conceal  and  deny: 
good  society,  good  books,  fast  travelling,  dress, 
dinners,  servants  without  number,  personal  weight, 
the  execution  of  his  ideas,  the  standing  in  the 
attitude  of  a  benefactor  to  all  persons  about  him, 
the  refined  enjoyments  of  pictures,  statues,  music, 
palaces  and  conventional  honors,  —  precisely  what 
is  agreeable  to  the  heart  of  every  man  in  the  nine 
teenth  century,  this  powerful  man  possessed. 


216  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

It  is  true  that  a  man  of  Napoleon's  truth  of 
adaptation  to  the  mind  of  the  masses  around  him, 
becomes  not  merely  representative  but  actually  a 
monopolizer  and  usurper  of  other  minds.  Thus 
Mirabeau  plagiarized  every  good  thought,  every 
good  word  that  was  spoken  in  France.  Dumont 
relates  that  he  sat  in  the  gallery  of  the  Conven 
tion  and  heard  Mirabeau  make  a  speech.  It 
struck  Dumont  that  he  could  fit  it  with  a  pero 
ration,  which  he  wrote  in  pencil  immediately,  and 
showed  it  to  Lord  Elgin,  who  sat  by  him.  Lord 
Elgin  approved  it,  and  Dumont,  in  the  evening, 
showed  it  to  Mirabeau.  Mirabeau  read  it,  pro 
nounced  it  admirable,  and  declared  he  would  in 
corporate  it  into  his  harangue  to-morrow,  to  the 
Assembly.  "  It  is  impossible,"  said  Dumont,  "as, 
unfortunately,  I  have  shown  it  to  Lord  Elgin." 
"  If  you  have  shown  it  to  Lord  Elgin  and  to  fifty 
persons  beside,  I  shall  still  speak  it  to-morrow : " 
and  he  did  speak  it,  with  much  effect,  at  the  next 
day's  session.  For  Mirabeau,  with  his  overpower 
ing  personality,  felt  that  these  things  which  his 
presence  inspired  were  as  much  his  own  as  if  he 
had  said  them,  and  that  his  adoption  of  them 
gave  them  their  weight.  Much  more  absolute  and 
centralizing  was  the  successor  to  Mirabeau's  popu 
larity  and  to  much  more  than  his  predominance 
in  France.  Indeed,  a  man  of  Napoleon's  stamp 


NAPOLEON;  OR,  THE  MAN  OF  THE  WORLD.  217 

almost  ceases  to  have  a  private  speech  and  opin 
ion.  He  is  so  largely  receptive,  and  is  so  placed, 
that  he  comes  to  be  a  bureau  for  all  the  intelli 
gence,  wit  and  power  of  the  age  and  country.  He 
gains  the  battle ;  he  makes  the  code ;  he  makes 
the  system  of  weights  and  measures ;  he  levels  the 
Alps;  he  builds  the  road.  All  distinguished  en 
gineers,  savans,  statists,  report  to  him :  so  likewise 
do  all  good  heads  in  every  kind :  he  adopts  the 
best  measures,  sets  his  stamp  on  them,  and  not 
these  alone,  but  on  every  happy  and  memorable 
expression.  Every  sentence  spoken  by  Napoleon 
and  every  line  of  his  writing,  deserves  reading, 
as  it  is  the  sense  of  France.  ; 

Bonaparte  was  the  idol  of  common  men  because 
he  had  in  transcendent  degree  the  qualities  and 
powers  of  common  men.  There  is  a  certain  satis 
faction  in  coming  down  to  the  lowest  ground  of 
politics,  for  we  get  rid  of  cant  and  hypocrisy. 
Bonaparte  wrought,  in  common  with  that  great 
class  he  represented,  for  power  and  wealth,  —  but 
Bonaparte,  specially,  without  any  scruple  as  to  the 
means.  All  the  sentiments  wrhich  embarrass  men's 
pursuit  of  these  objects,  he  set  aside.  The  senti 
ments  were  for  women  and  children.  Fontanes,  in 
1804,  expressed  Napoleon's  own  sense,  when  in  be 
half  of  the  Senate  he  addressed  him,  —  "  Sire,  the 
desire  of  perfection  is  the  worst  disease  that  ever 


218  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

afflicted  the  human  mind."  The  advocates  of  lib 
erty  and  of  progress  are  "  ideologists  ;  "  —  a  word 
of  contempt  often  in  his  mouth  ;  —  "  Necker  is  an 
ideologist :  "  "  Lafayette  is  an  ideologist." 

An  Italian  proverb,  too  well  known,  declares 
that  "  if  you  would  succeed,  you  must  not  be  too 
good."  It  is  an  advantage,  within  certain  limits,  to 
have  renounced  the  dominion  of  the  sentiments  of 
piety,  gratitude  and  generosity  ;  since  what  was  an 
impassable  bar  to  us,  and  still  is  to  others,  becomes 
a  convenient  weapon  for  our  purposes  ;  just  as  the 
river  which  was  a  formidable  barrier,  winter  trans 
forms  into  the  smoothest  of  roads. 

Napoleon  renounced,  once  for  all,  sentiments  and 
affections,  and  would  help  himself  with  his  hands 
and  his  head.  With  him  is  no  miracle  and  no 
magic.  He  is  a  worker  in  brass,  in  iron,  in  wood, 
in  earth,  in  roads,  in  buildings,  in  money  and  in 
troops,  and  a  very  consistent  and  wise  master-work 
man.  He  is  never  weak  and  literary,  but  acts  with 
the  solidity  and  the  precision  of  natural  agents. 
He  has  not  lost  his  native  sense  and  sympathy  with 
things.  Men  give  way  before  such  a  man,  as  be 
fore  natural  events.  To  be  sure  there  are  men 
enough  who  are  immersed  in  things,  as  farmers, 
smiths,  sailors  and  mechanics  generally;  and  we 
know  how  real  and  solid  such  men  appear  in  the 
presence  of  scholars  and  grammarians:  but  these 


NAPOLEON;  OR,  THE  MAN  OF  THE  WORLD.    219 

men  ordinarily  lack  the  power  of  arrangement,  and 
are  like  hands  without  a  head.  But  Bonaparte  su- 
peradded  to  this  mineral  and  animal  force,  insight 
and  generalization,  so  that  men  saw  in  him  com- 
•bined  the  natural  and  the  intellectual  power,  as  if 
the  sea  and  land  had  taken  flesh  and  begun  to  ci 
pher.  Therefore  the  land  and  sea  seem  to  presup 
pose  him.  He  came  unto  his  own  and  they  re 
ceived  him.  This  ciphering  operative  knows  what 
he  is  working  with  and  what  is  the  product.  He 
knew  the  properties  of  gold  and  iron,  of  wheels  and 
ships,  of  troops  and  diplomatists,  and  required  that 
each  should  do  after  its  kind. 

The  art  of  war  was  the  game  in  which  he  exerted 
his  arithmetic.  It  consisted,  according  to  him,  in 
having  always  more  forces  than  the  enemy,  on  the 
point  where  the  enemy  is  attacked,  or  where  he  at 
tacks  :  and  his  whole  talent  is  strained  by  endless 
manoeuvre  and  evolution,  to  march  always  on  the 
enemy  at  an  angle,  and  destroy  his  forces  in  detail. 
It  is  obvious  that  a  very  small  force,  skilfully  and 
rapidly  manoeuvring  so  as  always  to  bring  two  men 
against  one  at  the  point  of  engagement,  will  be  an 
overmatch  for  a  much  larger  body  of  men. 

The  times,  his  constitution  and  his  early  circum 
stances  combined  to  develop  this  pattern  democrat. 
He  had  the  virtues  of  his  class  and  the  conditions 
for  their  activity.  That  common-sense  which  no 


220  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

sooner  respects  any  end  than  it  finds  the  means  to 
effect  it ;  the  delight  in  the  use  of  means ;  in  the 
choice,  simplification  and  combining  of  means ;  the 
directness  and  thoroughness  of  his  work ;  the  pru 
dence  with  which  all  was  seen  and  the  energy  with 
which  all  was  done,  make  him  the  natural  organ 
and  head  of  what  I  may  almost  call,  from  its  ex 
tent,  the  modern  party. 

Nature  must  have  far  the  greatest  share  in  every 
success,  and  so  in  his.  Such  a  man  was  wanted, 
and  such  a  man  was  born ;  a  man  of  stone  and 
iron,  capable  of  sitting  on  horseback  sixteen  or  sev 
enteen  hours,  of  going  many  days  together  without 
rest  or  food  except  by  snatches,  and  with  the  speed 
and  spring  of  a  tiger  in  action ;  a  man  not  embar 
rassed  by  any  scruples  ;  compact,  instant,  selfish, 
prudent,  and  of  a  perception  which  did  not  suffer 
itself  to  be  baulked  or  misled  by  any  pretences  of 
others,  or  any  superstition  or  any  heat  or  haste  of 
his  own.  "My  hand  of  iron"  he  said,  "was  not  at 
the  extremity  of  my  arm,  it  was  immediately  con 
nected  with  my  head."  He  respected  the  power 
of  nature  and  fortune,  and  ascribed  to  it  his  su 
periority,  instead  of  valuing  himself,  like  inferior 
men,  on  his  opinionativeness,  and  waging  war  with 
nature.  His  favorite  rhetoric  lay  in  allusion  to  his 
star  ;  and  he  pleased  himself,  as  well  as  the  people, 
when  he  styled  himself  the  "Child  of  Destiny." 


NAPOLEON;  OR,  THE  MAN  OF  THE  WORLD.    221 

"  They  charge  me,"  he  said,  "  with  the  commission 
of  great  crimes :  men  of  my  stamp  do  not  commit 
crimes.  Nothing  has  been  more  simple  than  my 
elevation,  't  is  in  vain  to  ascribe  it  to  intrigue  or 
crime ;  it  was  owing  to  the  peculiarity  of  the  times 
and  to  my  reputation  of  having  fought  well  against 
the  enemies  of  my  country.  I  have  always  marched 
with  the  opinion  of  great  masses  and  with  events. 
Of  what  use  then  would  crimes  be  to  me  ?  "  Again 
he  said,  speaking  of  his  son,  "  My  son  can  not  re 
place  me  ;  I  could  not  replace  myself.  I  am  the 
creature  of  circumstances." 

He  had  a  directness  of  action  never  before  com 
bined  with  so  much  comprehension.  He  is  a  real 
ist,  terrific  to  all  talkers  and  confused  truth-obscur 
ing  persons.  He  sees  where  the  matter  hinges, 
throws  himself  on  the  precise  point  of  resistance, 
and  slights  all  other  considerations.  He  is  strong 
in  the  right  manner,  namely  by  insight.  He  never 
blundered  into  victory,  but  won  his  battles  in  his 
head  before  he  won  them  on  the  field.  \His  prin 
cipal  means  are  in  himself.  He  asks  counsel  of  no 
other.  In  1796  he  writes  to  the  Directory;  "I 
have  conducted  the  campaign  without  consulting 
any  one.  I  should  have  done  no  good  if  I  had  been 
under  the  necessity  of  conforming  to  the  notions  of 
another  person.  I  have  gained  some  advantages 
over  superior  forces  and  when  totally  destitute  of 


222  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

every  thing,  because,  in  the  persuasion  that  your 
confidence  was  reposed  in  me,  my  actions  were  as 
prompt  as  my  thoughts." 

History  is  full,  down  to  this  day,  of  the  imbecil 
ity  of  kings  and  governors.  They  are  a  class  of 
persons  much  to  be  pitied,  for  they  know  not  what 
they  should  do.  The  weavers  strike  for  bread,  and 
the  king  and  his  ministers,  knowing  not  what  to 
do,  meet  them  with  bayonets.  But  Napoleon  un 
derstood  his  business.  Here  was  a  man  who  in 
each  moment  and  emergency  knew  what  to  do  next. 
It  is  an  immense  comfort  and  refreshment  to  the 
spirits,  not  only  of  kings,  but  of  citizens.  Few 
men  have  any  next ;  they  live  from  hand  to  mouth, 
without  plan,  and  are  ever  at  the  end  of  their  line, 
and  after  each  action  wait  for  an  impulse  from 
abroad.  Napoleon  had  been  the  first  man  of  the 
world,  if  his  ends  had  been  purely  public.  As  he 
is,  he  inspires  confidence  and  vigor  by  the  extraor 
dinary  unity  of  his  action.  He  is  firm,  sure,  self- 
denying,  self-postponing,  sacrificing  every  thing,  — 
money,  troops,  generals,  and  his  own  safety  also, 
to  his  aim ;  not  misled,  like  common  adventurers, 
by  the  splendor  of  his  own  means.  "  Incidents 
ought  not  to  govern  policy,"  he  said,  "  but  policy, 
incidents."  "  To  be  hurried  away  by  every  event 
is  to  have  no  political  system  at  all."  His  vic 
tories  were  only  so  many  doors,  and  he  never  for  a 


NAPOLEON;   OR,  THE  MAN  OF  THE  WORLD.    223 

moment  lost  sight  of  Ms  way  onward,  in  the  daz 
zle  and  uproar  of  the  present  circumstance.  He 
knew  what  to  do,  and  he  flew  to  his  mark.  He 
would  shorten  a  straight  line  to  come  at  his  object. 
'Horrible  anecdotes  may  no  doubt  be  collected  from 
his  history,  of  the  price  at  which  he  bought  his  suc 
cesses  ;  but  he  must  not  therefore  be  set  down  as 
cruel,  but  only  as  one  who  knew  no  impediment  to 
his  will ;  not  bloodthirsty,  not  cruel,  —  but  wo  to 
what  thing  or  person  stood  in  his  way  !  Not  blood 
thirsty,  but  not  sparing  of  blood, —  and  pitiless. 
He  saw  only  the  object :  the  obstacle  must  give 
way.  "  Sire,  General  Clarke  can  not  combine  with 
General  Junot,  for  the  dreadful  fire  of  the  Aus 
trian  battery."  —  "  Let  him  carry  the  battery." 
—  "  Sire,  every  regiment  that  approaches  the  heavy 
artillery  is  sacrificed :  Sire,  what  orders  ?  " —  "  For 
ward,  forward  !  "  Seruzier,  a  colonel  of  artillery, 
gives,  in  his  "  Military  Memoirs,"  the  following 
sketch  of  a  scene  after  the  battle  of  Austerlitz.  — 
"  At  the  moment  in  which  the  Russian  army  was 
making  its  retreat,  painfully,  but  in  good  order,  on 
the  ice  of  the  lake,  the  Emperor  Napoleon  came 
riding  at  full  speed  toward  the  artillery.  "You 
are  losing  time,"  he  cried;  "fire  upon  those  masses; 
they  must  be  engulfed :  fire  upon  the  ice !  "  The 
order  remained  unexecuted  for  ten  minutes.  In 
vain  several  officers  and  myself  were  placed  on  the 


224  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

slope  of  a  hill  to  produce  the  effect :  their  balls  and 
mine  rolled  upon  the  ice  without  breaking  it  up. 
Seeing  that,  I  tried  a  simple  method  of  elevating 
light  howitzers.  The  almost  perpendicular  fall  of 
the  heavy  projectiles  produced  the  desired  effect. 
My  method  was  immediately  followed  by  the  ad 
joining  batteries,  and  in  less  than  no  time  we  bur 
ied  "  some  l  "  thousands  of  Russians  and  Austrian s 
under  the  waters  of  the  lake." 

In  the  plenitude  of  his  resources,  every  obstacle 
seemed  to  vanish.  "  There  shall  be  no  Alps,"  he 
said ;  and  he  built  his  perfect  roads,  climbing  by 
graded  galleries  their  steepest  precipices,  until  Italy 
was  as  open  to  Paris  as  any  town  in  France.  He 
laid  his  bones  to,  and  wrought  for  his  crown.  Hav 
ing  decided  what  was  to  be  done,  he  did  that  with 
might  and  main.  He  put  out  all  his  strength.  He 
risked  every  thing  and  spared  nothing,  neither  am 
munition,  nor  money,  nor  troops,  nor  generals,  nor 
himself. 

*  We  like  to  see  every  thing  do  its  office  after  its 
kind,  whether  it  be  a  milch-cow  or  a  rattle-snake ; 
and  if  fighting  be  the  best  mode  of  adjusting 
national  differences,  ( as  large  majorities  of  men 
seem  to  agree, )  certainly  Bonaparte  was  right  in 
making  it  thorough.  The  grand  principle  of  war, 

1  As  I  quote  at  second  hand,  and  cannot  procure  Seruzier, 
I  dare  not  adopt  the  high  figure  I  find. 


NAPOLEON;   OR,  THE  MAN  OF  THE  WORLD.    225 

he  said,  was  that  an  army  ought  always  to  be  ready, 
by  day  and  by  night  and  at  all  hours,  to  make  all 
the  resistance  it  is  capable  of  making.  He  never 
economized  his  ammunition,  but,  on  a  hostile  posi 
tion,  rained  a  torrent  of  iron,  —  shells,  balls,  grape- 
shot,  —  to  annihilate  all  defence.  On  any  point 
of  resistance  he  concentrated  squadron  on  squad 
ron  in  overwhelming  numbers  until  it  was  swept 
out  of  existence.  To  a  regiment  of  horse-chas 
seurs  at  Lobenstein,  two  days  before  the  battle  of 
Jena,  Napoleon  said,  "  My  lads,  you  must  not  fear 
death ;  when  soldiers  brave  death,  they  drive  him 
into  the  enemy's  ranks."  In  the  fury  of  assault, 
he  no  more  spared  himself.  He  went  to  the  edge 
of  his  possibility.  It  is  plain  that  in  Italy  he  did 
what  he  could,  and  all  that  he  could.  He  came, 
several  times,  within  an  inch  of  ruin  ;  and  his  own 
person  was  all  but  lost.  He  was  flung  into  the 
marsh  at  Arcola.  The  Austrian s  were  between  him 
and  his  troops,  in  the  melee,  and  he  was  brought 
off  with  desperate  efforts.  At  Lonato,  and  at  other 
places,  he  was  on  the  point  of  being  taken  prisoner. 
He  fought  sixty  battles.  He  had  never  enough. 
Each  victory  was  a  new  weapon.  "My  power 
would  fall,  were  I  not  to  support  it  by  new  achieve 
ments.  Conquest  has  made  me  what  I  am,  and 
conquest  must  maintain  me."  He  felt,  with  every 
wise  man,  that  as  much  life  is  needed  for  conserva- 

VOL.   IV.  15 


226  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

tion  as  for  creation.  We  are  always  in  peril, 
always  in  a  bad  plight,  just  on  the  edge  of  destruc 
tion  and  only  to  be  saved  by  invention  and  courage. 

This  vigor  was  guarded  and  tempered  by  the 
coldest  prudence  and  punctuality.  A  thunderbolt 
in  the  attack,  he  was  found  invulnerable  in  his 
intrenchments.  His  very  attack  was  never  the  in 
spiration  of  courage,  but  the  result  of  calculation. 
His  idea  of  the  best  defence  consists  in  being  still 
the  attacking  party.  "  My  ambition,"  he  says, 
"was  great,  but  was  of  a  cold  nature."  In  one 
of  his  conversations  with  Las  Casas,  he  remarked, 
"  As  to  moral  courage,  I  have  rarely  met  with  the 
two-o'clock-in-the-morning  kind  :  I  mean  unpre 
pared  courage ;  that  which  is  necessary  011  an  un 
expected  occasion,  and  which,  in  spite  of  the  most 
unforeseen  events,  leaves  full  freedom  of  judgment 
and  decision  :  "  and  he  did  not  hesitate  to  declare 
that  he  was  himself  eminently  endowed  with  this 
two-o'clock-in-the-morning  courage,  and  that  he 
had  met  with  few  persons  equal  to  himself  in  this 
respect. 

Every  thing  depended  on  the  nicety  of  his  com 
binations,  and  the  stars  were  not  more  punctual 
than  his  arithmetic.  His  personal  attention  de 
scended  to  the  smallest  particulars.  "  At  Monte- 
bello,  I  ordered  Kellermann  to  attack  with  eight 
hundred  horse,  and  with  these  he  separated  the 


NAPOLEON;  OR,  THE  MAN  OF  THE  WORLD.  227 

six  thousand  Hungarian  grenadiers,  before  the  very 
eyes  of  the  Austrian  cavalry.  This  cavalry  was 
half  a  league  off  and  required  a  quarter  of  an 
hour  to  arrive  on  the  field  of  action,  and  I  have 
observed  that  it  is  always  these  quarters  of  an  hour 
that  decide  the  fate  of  a  battle."  "  Before  he 
fought  a  battle,  Bonaparte  thought  little  about 
what  he  should  do  in  case  of  success,  but  a  great 
deal  about  what  he  should  do  in  case  of  a  reverse 
of  fortune."  The  same  prudence  and  good  sense 
mark  all  his  behavior.  His  instructions  to  his 
secretary  at  the  Tuileries  are  worth  remembering. 
"  During  the  night,  enter  my  chamber  as  seldom  as 
possible.  Do  not  awake  me  when  you  have  any 
good  news  to  communicate ;  with  that  there  is  no 
hurry.  But  when  you  bring  bad  news,  rouse  me 
instantly,  for  then  there  is  not  a  moment  to  be 
lost."  It  was  a  whimsical  economy  of  the  same 
kind  which  dictated  his  practice,  when  general  in 
Italy,  in  regard  to  his  burdensome  correspondence. 
He  directed  Bourrienne  to  leave  all  letters  unopened 
for  three  weeks,  and  then  observed  with  satisfac 
tion  how  large  a  part  of  the  correspondence  had 
thus  disposed  of  itself  and  no  longer  required  an 
answer.  His  achievement  of  business  was  immense, 
and  enlarges  the  known  powers  of  man.  There 
have  been  many  working  kings,  from  Ulysses  to 
William  of  Orange,  but  none  who  accomplished  a 
tithe  of  this  man's  performance. 


228  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

To  these  gifts  of  nature,  Napoleon  added  the  ad 
vantage  of  having  been  born  to  a  private  and  hum 
ble  fortune.  In  his  later  days  he  had  the  weakness 
of  wishing  to  add  to  his  crowns  and  badges  the  pre 
scription  of  aristocracy ;  but  he  knew  his  debt  to 
his  austere  education,  and  made  no  secret  of  his 
contempt  for  the  born  kings,  and  for  "  the  heredi 
tary  asses,"  as  he  coarsely  styled  the  Bourbons. 
He  said  that  "  in  their  exile  they  had  learned  noth 
ing,  and  forgot  nothing."  Bonaparte  had  passed 
through  all  the  degrees  of  military  service,  but  also 
was  citizen  before  he  was  emperor,  and  so  has 
the  key  to  citizenship.  His  remarks  and  estimates 
discover  the  information  and  justness  of  measure 
ment  of  the  middle  class.  Those  who  had  to  deal 
with  him  found  that  he  was  not  to  be  imposed 
upon,  but  could  cipher  as  well  as  another  man. 
This  appears  in  all  parts  of  his  Memoirs,  dictated 
at  St.  Helena.  When  the  expenses  of  the  empress, 
of  his  household,  of  his  palaces,  had  accumulated 
great  debts,  Napoleon  examined  the  bills  of  the 
creditors  himself,  detected  overcharges  and  errors, 
and  reduced  the  claims  by  considerable  sums. 

His  grand  weapon,  namely  the  millions  whom  he 
directed,  he  owed  to  the  representative  character 
which  clothed  him.  He  interests  us  as  he  stands 
for  France  and  for  Europe  ;  and  he  exists  as  cap 
tain  and  king  only  as  far  as  the  Revolution,  or  the 


NAPOLEON;  07?,  THE  MAN  OF  THE  WORLD.    229 

interest  of  the  industrious  masses,  found  an  organ 
and  a  leader  in  him.  In  the  social  interests,  he 
knew  the  meaning  and  value  of  labor,  and  threw 
himself  naturally  on  that  side.  I  like  an  incident 
mentioned  by  one  of  his  biographers  at  St.  He 
lena.  "  When  walking  with  Mrs.  Balcombe,  some 
servants,  carrying  heavy  boxes,  passed  by  on  the 
road,  and  Mrs.  Balcombe  desired  them,  in  rather 
an  angry  tone,  to  keep  back.  Napoleon  interfered, 
saying  c  Respect  the  burden,  Madam.' '  In  the 
time  of  the  empire  he  directed  attention  to  the  im 
provement  and  embellishment  of  the  markets  of 
the  capital.  "  The  market-place,"  he  said,  "  is  the 
Louvre  of  the  common  people."  The  principal 
works  that  have  survived  him  are  his  magnificent 
roads.  He  filled  the  troops  with  his  spirit,  and  a 
sort  of  freedom  and  companionship  grew  up  be 
tween  him  and  them,  which  the  forms  of  his  court 
never  permitted  between  the  officers  and  himself. 
They  performed,  under  his  eye,  that  which  no 
others  could  do.  The  best  document  of  his  relation 
to  his  troops  is  the  order  of  the  day  on  the  morn 
ing  of  the  battle  of  Austerlitz,  in  which  Napoleon 
promises  the  troops  that  he  will  keep  his  person 
out  of  reach  of  fire.  This  declaration,  which  is  the 
reverse  of  that  ordinarily  made  by  generals  and 
sovereigns  on  the  eve  of  a  battle,  sufficiently  ex 
plains  the  devotion  of  the  army  to  their  leader. 


230  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

But  though  there  is  in  particulars  this  identity 
between  Napoleon  and  the  mass  of  the  people,  his 
real  strength  lay  in  their  conviction  that  he  was 
their  representative  in  his  genius  and  aims,  not  only 
when  he  courted,  but  when  he  controlled,  and  even 
when  he  decimated  them  by  his  conscriptions.  He 
knew,  as  well  as  any  Jacobin  in  France,  how  to  phi 
losophize  on  liberty  and  equality ;  and  when  allusion 
was  made  to  the  precious  blood  of  centuries,  which 
was  spilled  by  the  killing  of  the  Due  d'Enghien, 
he  suggested,  "  Neither  is  my  blood  ditch-water." 
The  people  felt  that  no  longer  the  throne  was  oc 
cupied  and  the  land  sucked  of  its  nourishment,  by 
a  small  class  of  legitimates,  secluded  from  all  com 
munity  with  the  children  of  the  soil,  and  holding 
the  ideas  and  superstitions'  of  a  long-forgotten 
state  of  society.  Instead  of  that  vain  pyre,  a  man 
of  themselves  held,  in  the  Tuileries,  knowledge  and 
ideas  like  their  own,  opening  of  course  to  them  and 
their  children  all  places  of  power  and  trust.  The 
day  of  sleepy,  selfish  policy,  ever  narrowing  the 
means  and  opportunities  of  young  men,  was  ended, 
and  a  day  of  expansion  and  demand  was  come.  A 
market  for  all  the  powers  and  productions  of  man 
was  opened ;  brilliant  prizes  glittered  in  the  eyes 
of  youth  and  talent.  The  old,  iron-bound,  feudal 
France  was  changed  into  a  young  Ohio  or  New 
York ;  and  those  who  smarted  under  the  immediate 


NAPOLEON;  OR,  THE  MAN  OF  THE  WORLD.  231 

rigors  of  the  new  monarch,  pardoned  them  as  the 
necessary  severities  of  the  military  system  which 
had  driven  out  the  oppressor.  And  even  when  the 
majority  of  the  people  had  begun  to  ask  whether 
they  had  really  gained  any  thing  under  the  exhaust 
ing  levies  of  men  and  money  of  the  new  master, 
the  whole  talent  of  the  country,  in  every  rank  and 
kindred,  took  his  part  and  defended  him  as  its  nat 
ural  patron.  In  1814,  when  advised  to  rely  on  the 
higher  classes,  Napoleon  said  to  those  around  him, 
"  Gentlemen,  in  the  situation  in  which  I  stand,  my 
only  nobility  is  the  rabble  of  the  Faubourgs." 

Napoleon  met  this  natural  expectation.  The 
necessity  of  his  position  required  a  hospitality  to 
every  sort  of  talent,  and  its  appointment  to  trusts  ; 
and  his  feeling  went  along  with  this  policy.  Like 
every  superior  person,  he  undoubtedly  felt  a  desire 
for  men  and  compeers,  and  a  wish  to  measure  his 
power  with  other  masters,  and  an  impatience  of 
fools  and  underlings.  In  Italy,  he  sought  for  men 
and  found  none.  "Good  God!"  he  said,  "how 
rare  men  are !  There  are  eighteen  millions  in 
Italy,  and  I  have  with  difficulty  found  two,  — 
Dandolo  and  Melzi."  In  later  years,  with  larger 
experience,  his  respect  for  mankind  was  not  in 
creased.  In  a  moment  of  bitterness  he  said  to 
one  of  his  oldest  friends,  "  Men  deserve  the  con 
tempt  with  which  they  inspire  me.  I  have  only  to 


232  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

put  some  gold-lace  on  the  coat  of  my  virtuous  re 
publicans  and  they  immediately  become  just  what 
I  wish  them."  This  impatience  at  levity  was,  how 
ever,  an  oblique  tribute  of  respect  to  those  able 
persons  who  commanded  his  regard  not  only  when 
he  found  them  friends  and  coadjutors  but  also 
when  they  resisted  his  will.  He  could  not  con 
found  Fox  and  Pitt,  Carnot,  Lafayette  and  Berna- 
dotte,  with  the  danglers  of  his  court ;  and  in  spite 
of  the  detraction  which  his  systematic  egotism  die- 
Stated  toward  the  great  captains  who  conquered 
with  and  for  him,  ample  acknowledgments  are 
made  by  him  to  Lannes,  Duroc,  Kleber,  Dessaix, 
Massena,  Murat,  Ney  and  Augereau.  If  he  felt 
himself  their  patron  and  the  founder  of  their  for 
tunes,  as  when  he  said  "  I  made  my  generals  out  of 
mud,"  —  he  could  not  hide  his  satisfaction  in  re 
ceiving  from  them  a  seconding  and  support  com 
mensurate  with  the  grandeur  of  his  enterprise.  In 
the  Russian  campaign  he  was  so  much  impressed  by 
the  courage  and  resources  of  Marshal  Ney,  that  he 
said,  "  I  have  two  hundred  millions  in  my  coffers, 
and  I  would  give  them  all  for  Ney."  The  charac 
ters  which  he  has  drawn  of  several  of  his  marshals 
are  discriminating,  and  though  they  did  not  con 
tent  the  insatiable  vanity  of  French  officers,  are  no 
doubt  substantially  just.  And  in  fact  every  species 
of  merit  was  sought  and  advanced  under  his  gov- 


NAPOLEON;  OR,  THE  MAN  OF  THE  WORLD.    233 

eminent.  "  I  know"  he  said,  "the  depth  and 
draught  of  water  of  every  one  of  my  generals." 
Natural  power  was  sure  to  be  well  received  at  his 
court.  Seventeen  men  in  his  time  were  raised  from 
common  soldiers  to  the  rank  of  king,  marshal, 
duke,  or  general ;  and  the  crosses  of  his  Legion  of 
Honor  were  given  to  personal  valor,  and  not  to 
family  connexion.  "  When  soldiers  have  been  bap 
tized  in  the  fire  of  a  battle-field,  they  have  all  one 
rank  in  my  eyes." 

When  a  natural  king  becomes  a  titular  king, 
every  body  is  pleased  and  satisfied.  The  Revolu 
tion  entitled  the  strong  populace  of  the  Faubourg 
St.  Antoine,  and  every  horse  -  boy  and  powder- 
monkey  in  the  army,  to  look  on  Napoleon  as  flesh 
of  his  flesh  and  the  creature  of  his  party :  but 
there  is  something  in  the  success  of  grand  talent 
which  enlists  an  universal  sympathy.  For  in  the 
prevalence  of  sense  and  spirit  over  stupidity  and 
malversation,  all  reasonable  men  have  an  interest ; 
and  as  intellectual  beings  we  feel  the  air  purified 
by  the  electric  shock,  when  material  force  is  over 
thrown  by  intellectual  energies.  As  soon  as  we 
are  removed  out  of  the  reach  of  local  and  acciden 
tal  partialities,  Man  feels  that  Napoleon  fights  for 
him  ;  these  are  honest  victories ;  this  strong  steam- 
engine  does  our  work.  Whatever  appeals  to  the 
imagination,  by  transcending  the  ordinary  limits  of 


234  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

human  ability,  wonderfully  encourages  and  liber 
ates  us.  This  capacious  head,  revolving  and  dis 
posing  sovereignly  trains  of  affairs,  and  animating 
such  multitudes  of  agents ;  this  eye,  which  looked 
through  Europe ;  this  prompt  invention  ;  this  inex 
haustible  resource  :  —  what  events  !  what  romantic 
pictures  !  what  strange  situations  !  —  when  spying 
the  Alps,  by  a  sunset  in  the  Sicilian  sea ;  drawing 
up  his  army  for  battle  in  sight  of  the  Pyramids, 
and  saying  to  his  troops,  "  From  the  tops  of  those 
pyramids,  forty  centuries  look  down  on  you;"  ford 
ing  the  Red  Sea ;  wading  in  the  gulf  of  the  Isth 
mus  of  Suez.  On  the  shore  of  Ptolemais,  gigantic 
projects  agitated  him.  "  Had  Acre  fallen,  I  should 
have  changed  the  face  of  the  world."  His  army, 
on  the  night  of  the  battle  of  Austerlitz,  which  was 
the  anniversary  of  his  inauguration  as  Emperor, 
presented  him  with  a  bouquet  of  forty  standards 
taken  in  the  fight.  Perhaps  it  is  a  little  puerile, 
the  pleasure  he  took  in  making  these  contrasts 
glaring  ;  as  when  he  pleased  himself  with  making 
kings  wait  in  his  antechambers,  at  Tilsit,  at  Paris 
and  at  Erfurt. 

We  cannot,  in  the  universal  imbecility,  indecis 
ion  and  indolence  of  men,  sufficiently  congratulate 
ourselves  on  this  strong  and  ready  actor,  who  took 
occasion  by  the  beard,  and  showed  us  how  much 
may  be  accomplished  by  the  mere  force  of  such  vir- 


NAPOLEON;  OR,  THE  MAN  OF  THE  WORLD.    235 

tues  as  all  men  possess  in  less  degrees ;  namely,  by 
punctuality,  by  personal  attention,  by  courage  and 
thoroughness.  "  The  Austrians  "  he  said,  "  do  not 
know  the  value  of  time."  I  should  cite  him,  in  his 
earlier  years,  as  a  model  of  prudence.  His  power 
does  not  consist  in  any  wild  or  extravagant  force  ; 
in  any  enthusiasm  like  Mahomet's,  or  singular 
power  of  persuasion  ;  but  in  the  exercise  of  com 
mon-sense  on  each  emergency,  instead  of  abiding 
by  rules  and  customs.  The  lesson  he  teaches  is 
that  which  vigor  always  teaches  ;  —  that  there  is 
always  room  for  it.  To  what  heaps  of  cowardly 
doubts  is  not  that  man's  life  an  answer.  When  he 
appeared  it  was  the  belief  of  all  military  men  that 
there  could  be  nothing  new  in  war  ;  as  it  is  the  be 
lief  of  men  to-day  that  nothing  new  can  be  under 
taken  in  politics,  or  in  church,  or  in  letters,  or  in 
trade,  or  in  farming,  or  in  our  social  manners  and 
customs ;  and  as  it  is  at  all  times  the  belief  of  so 
ciety  that  the  world  is  used  up.  But  Bonaparte 
knew  better  than  society ;  and  moreover  knew  that 
he  knew  better.  I  think  all  men  know  better  than 
they  do  ;  know  that  the  institutions  we  so  volubly 
commend  are  go-carts  and  baubles ;  but  they  dare 
not  trust  their  presentiments.  Bonaparte  relied  on 
his  own  sense,  and  did  not  care  a  bean  for  other 
people's.  The  world  treated  his  novelties  just  as  it 
treats  everybody's  novelties,  —  made  infinite  objec- 


236  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

tion,  mustered  all  the  impediments ;  but  he  snapped 
his  finger  at  their  objections.  "What  creates  great 
difficulty "  he  remarks,  "  in  the  profession  of  the 
land -commander,  is  the  necessity  of  feeding  so 
many  men  and  animals.  If  he  allows  himself  to  be 
guided  by  the  commissaries  he  will  never  stir,  and 
all  his  expeditions  will  fail."  An  example  of  his 
common-sense  is  what  he  says  of  the  passage  of  the 
Alps  in  winter,  which  all  writers,  one  repeating 
after  the  other,  had  described  as  impracticable. 
"  The  winter,"  says  Napoleon,  "  is  not  the  most 
unfavorable  season  for  the  passage  of  lofty  moun 
tains.  The  snow  is  then  firm,  the  weather  settled, 
and  there  is  nothing  to  fear  from  avalanches,  the 
real  and  only  danger  to  be  apprehended  in  the 
Alps.  On  those  high  mountains  there  are  often 
very  fine  days  in  December,  of  a  dry  cold,  with  ex 
treme  calmness  in  the  air."  Read  his  account,  too, 
of  the  way  in  which  battles  are  gained.  "  In  all 
battles  a  moment  occurs  when  the  bravest  troops, 
after  having  made  the  greatest  efforts,  feel  inclined 
to  run.  That  terror  proceeds  from  a  want  of  con 
fidence  in  their  own  courage,  and  it  only  requires  a 
slight  opportunity,  a  pretence,  to  restore  confidence 
to  them.  The  art  is,  to  give  rise  to  the  opportu 
nity  and  to  invent  the  pretence.  At  Arcola  I  won 
the  battle  with  twenty-five  horsemen.  I  seized  that 
moment  of  lassitude,  gave  every  man  a  trumpet, 


NAPOLEON;  OR,  THE  MAN  OF  THE  WORLD.    237 

and  gained  the  day  with  this  handful.  You  see 
that  two  armies  are  two  bodies  which  meet  and  en 
deavor  to  frighten  each  other ;  a  moment  of  panic 
occurs,  and  that  moment  must  be  turned  to  advan 
tage.  When  a  man  has  been  present  in  many  ac 
tions,  he  distinguishes  that  moment  without  diffi 
culty  :  it  is  as  easy  as  casting  up  an  addition." 

This  deputy  of  the  nineteenth  century  added 
to  his  gifts  a  capacity  for  speculation  on  general^ 
topics.  He  delighted  in  running  through  the 
range  of  practical,  of  literary  and  of  abstract  ques 
tions.  His  opinion  is  always  original  and  to  the 
purpose.  On  the  voyage  to  Egypt  he  liked, 
after  dinner,  to  fix  on  three  or  four  persons  to 
support  a  proposition,  and  as  many  to  oppose  it. 
He  gave  a  subject,  and  the  discussions  turned  on 
questions  of  religion,  the  different  kinds  of  gov 
ernment  and  the  art  of  war.  One  day  he  asked 
whether  the  planets  were  inhabited  ?  On  another, 
what  was  the  age  of  the  world?  Then  he  pro 
posed  to  consider  the  probability  of  the  destruction 
of  the  globe,  either  by  water  or  by  fire :  at  an 
other  time,  the  truth  or  fallacy  of  presentiments, 
and  the  interpretation  of  dreams.  He  was  very 
fond  of  talking  of  religion.  In  1806  he  conversed 
with  Fournier,  bishop  of  Montpellier,  on  matters 
of  theology.  There  were  two  points  on  which  they 
could  not  agree,  viz.  that  of  hell,  and  that  of  salva- 


238  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

tion  out  of  the  pale  of  the  church.  The  Emperor 
told  Josephine  that  he  disputed  like  a  devil  on 
these  two  points,  on  which  the  bishop  was  inexora 
ble.  To  the  philosophers  he  readily  yielded  all 
that  was  proved  against  religion  as  the  work  of 
men  and  time,  but  he  would  not  hear  of  material 
ism.  One  fine  night,  on  deck,  amid  a  clatter  of 
materialism,  Bonaparte  pointed  to  the  stars,  and 
said,  "  You  may  talk  as  long  as  you  please,  gen 
tlemen,  but  who  made  all  that  ? "  He  delighted 
in  the  conversation  of  men  of  science,  particularly 
of  Monge  and  Berthollet ;  but  the  men  of  let 
ters  he  slighted ;  they  were  "  manufacturers  of 
phrases."  Of  medicine  too  he  was  fond  of  talk 
ing,  and  with  those  of  its  practitioners  whom  he 
most  esteemed,  —  with  Corvisart  at  Paris,  and 
with  Antonomarchi  at  St.  Helena.  "  Believe  me," 
he  said  to  the  last,  "we  had  better  leave  off  all 
these  remedies :  life  is  a  fortress  which  neither  you 
nor  I  know  anything  about.  Why  throw  obsta 
cles  in  the  way  of  its  defence?  Its  own  means 
are  superior  to  all  the  apparatus  of  your  labora 
tories.  Corvisart  candidly  agreed  with  me  that  all 
your  filthy  mixtures  are  good  for  nothing.  Medi 
cine  is  a  collection  of  uncertain  prescriptions,  the 
results  of  which,  taken  collectively,  are  more  fatal 
than  useful  to  mankind.  Water,  air  and  cleanli 
ness  are  the  chief  articles  in  my  pharmacopoeia." 


NAPOLEON;  OR,  THE  MAN  OF  THE  WORLD.  239 

His  memoirs,  dictated  to  Count  Montholon  and 
General  Gourgaud  at  St.  Helena,  have  great  value, 
after  all  the  deduction  that  it  seems  is  to  be  made 
from  them  on  account  of  his  known  disingenuous- 
ness.  He  has  the  good-nature  of  strength  and 
conscious  superiority.  I  admire  his  simple,  clear 
narrative  of  his  battles  ;  —  good  as  Cesar's  ;  his 
good-natured  and  sufficiently  respectful  account  of 
Marshal  Wurmser  and  his  other  antagonists  ;  and 
his  own  equality  as  a  writer  to  his  varying  sub 
ject.  The  most  agreeable  portion  is  the  Campaign 
in  Egypt. 

He  had  hours  of  thought  and  wisdom.  In  in 
tervals  of  leisure,  either  in  the  camp  or  the  palace, 
Napoleon  appears  as  a  man  of  genius  directing 
on  abstract  questions  the  native  appetite  for  truth 
and  the  impatience  of  words  he  was  wont  to  show 
in  war.  He  could  enjoy  every  play  of  invention, 
a  romance,  a  bon  mot,  as  well  as  a  stratagem  in  a 
campaign.  He  delighted  to*'  fascinate  Josephine 
and  her  ladies,  in  a  dim-lighted  apartment,  by 
the  terrors  of  a  fiction  to  which  his  voice  and 
dramatic  power  lent  every  addition. 

I  call  Napoleon  the  agent  or  attorney  of  the  mid 
dle  class  of  modern  society ;  of  the  throng  who  fill 
the  markets,  shops,  counting-houses,  manufactories, 
ships,  of  the  modern  world,  aiming  to  be  rich.  He 
was  the  agitator,  the  destroyer  of  prescription,  the 


240  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

internal  improver,  the  liberal,  the  radical,  the  in 
ventor  of  means,  the  opener  of  doors  and  markets, 
the  subverter  of  monopoly  and  abuse.  Of  course 
the  rich  and  aristocratic  did  not  like  him.  Eng 
land,  the  centre  of  capital,  and  Rome  and  Austria, 
centres  of  tradition  and  genealogy,  opposed  him.  ' 
The  consternation  of  the  dull  and  conservative 
classes,  the  terror  of  the  foolish  old  men  and  old 
women  of  the  Roman  conclave,  who  in  their  de 
spair  took  hold  of  any  thing,  and  would  cling  to 
red-hot  iron,  —  the  vain  attempts  of  statists  to 
amuse  and  deceive  him,  of  the  emperor  of  Austria 
to  bribe  him ;  and  the  instinct  of  the  young,  ardent 
and  active  men  every  where,  which  pointed  him 
out  as  the  giant  of  the  middle  class,  make  his  his 
tory  bright  and  commanding.  He  had  the  virtues 
of  the  masses  of  his  constituents :  he  had  also  their 

• 

vices.  I  am  sorry  that  the  brilliant  picture  has  its 
reverse.  But  that  is  the  fatal  quality  which  we 
discover  in  our  pursuit  of  wealth,  that  it  is  treach 
erous,  and  is  bought  by  the  breaking  or  weakening 
of  the  sentiments;  and  it  is  inevitable  that  we 
should  find  the  same  fact  in  the  history  of  this 
champion,  who  proposed  to  himself  simply  a  brill 
iant  career,  without  any  stipulation  or  scruple  con 
cerning  the  means. 

Bonaparte  was  singularly  destitute  of  generous 
sentiments.     The  highest-placed  individual  in  the 


NAPOLEON;  OR,  THE  MAN  OF  THE  WORLD.    241 

most  cultivated  age  and  population  of  the  world,  — 
lie  has  not  the  merit  of  common  truth  and  honesty. 
He  is  unjust  to  his  generals ;  egotistic  and  monop 
olizing;  meanly  stealing  the  credit  of  their  great 
actions  from  Kellermann,  from  Bernadotte  ;  in 
triguing  to  involve  his  faithful  Junot  in  hopeless 
bankruptcy,  in  order  to  drive  him  to  a  distance 
from  Paris,  because  the  familiarity  of  his  man 
ners  offends  the  new  pride  of  his  throne.  He  is  a 
boundless  liar.  The  official  paper,  his  "  Moniteur," 
and  all  his  bulletins,  are  proverbs  for  saying  what 
he  wished  to  be  believed  ;  and  worse,  —  he  sat,  in 
his  premature  old  age,  in  his  lonely  island,  coldly 
falsifying  facts  and  dates  and  characters,  and  giv 
ing  to  history  a  theatrical  eclat.  Like  all  French 
men  he  has  a  passion  for  stage  effect.  Every  ac 
tion  that  breathes  of  generosity  is  poisoned  by  this 
calculation.  His  star,  his  love  of  glory,  his  doc 
trine  of  the  immortality  of  the  soul,  are  all  French. 
"  I  must  dazzle  and  astonish.  If  I  were  to  give 
the  liberty  of  the  press,  my  power  could  not  last 
three  days."  To  make  a  great  noise  is  his  favorite 
design.  "  A  great  reputation  is  a  great  noise  :  the 
more  there  is  made,  the  farther  off  it  is  heard. 
Laws,  institutions,  monuments,  nations,  all  fall  ; 
but  the  noise  continues,  and  resounds  in  after  ages." 
His  doctrine  of  immortality  is  simply  fame.  His 
theory  of  influence  is  not  flattering.  "  There  are 

VOL.  IV.  16 


242  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

two  levers  for  moving  men,  — interest  and  fear. 
Love  is  a  silly  infatuation,  depend  upon  it.  Friend 
ship  is  but  a  name.  I  love  nobody.  I  do  not  even 
love  my  brothers :  perhaps  Joseph  a  little,  from 
habit,  and  because  he  is  my  elder ;  and  Duroc,  I 
love  him  too  ;  but  why  ?  —  because  his  character 
pleases  me :  he  is  stern  and  resolute,  and  I  believe 
the  fellow  never  shed  a  tear.  For  my  part  I  know 
very  well  that  I  have  no  true  friends.  As  long  as 
I  continue  to  be  what  I  am,  I  may  have  as  many 
pretended  friends  as  I  please.  Leave  sensibility 
to  women ;  but  men  should  be  firm  in  heart  and 
purpose,  or  they  should  have  nothing  to  do  with 
war  and  government."  He  was  thoroughly  unscru 
pulous.  He  would  steal,  slander,  assassinate,  drown 
and  poison,  as  his  interest  dictated.  He  had  no 
generosity,  but  mere  vulgar  hatred ;  he  was  in 
tensely  selfish;  he  was  perfidious;  he  cheated  at 
cards  ;  he  was  a  prodigious  gossip,  and  opened  let 
ters,  and  delighted  in  his  infamous  police,  and 
rubbed  his  hands  with  joy  when  he  had  intercepted 
some  morsel  of  intelligence  concerning  the  men  and 
women  about  him,  boasting  that  "  he  knew  every 
thing  ;  "  and  interfered  with  the  cutting  the  dresses 
of  the  women  ;  and  listened  after  the  hurrahs  and 
the  compliments  of  the  street,  incognito.  His  man 
ners  were  coarse.  He  treated  women  with  low 
familiarity.  He  had  the  habit  of  pulling  their  ears 


NAPOLEON;  OR,  THE  MAN  OF  THE  WORLD.    243 

and  pinching  their  cheeks  when  he  was  in  good 
humor,  and  of  pulling  the  ears  and  whiskers  of 
men,  and  of  striking  and  horse-play  with  them,  to 
his  last  days.  It  does  not  appear  that  he  listened 
at  key-holes,  or  at  least  that  he  was  caught  at  it. 
In  short,  when  you  have  penetrated  through  all  the 
circles  of  power  and  splendor,  you  were  not  deal 
ing  with  a  gentleman,  at  last ;  but  with  an  impostor 
and  a  rogue  ;  and  he  fully  deserves  the  epithet  of 
Jupiter  Scapin,  or  a  sort  of  Scamp  Jupiter. 

In  describing  the  two  parties  into  which  modern 
society  divides  itself,  —  the  democrat  and  the  con 
servative,  —  I  said,  Bonaparte  represents  the  Dem 
ocrat,  or  the  party  of  men  of  business,  against  the 
stationary  or  conservative  party.  I  omitted  then 
to  say,  what  is  material  to  the  statement,  namely 
that  these  two  parties  differ  only  as  young  and  old. 
The  democrat  is  a  young  conservative  ;  the  conser 
vative  is  an  old  democrat.  The  aristocrat  is  the 
democrat  ripe  and  gone  to  seed;  —  because  both 
parties  stand  on  the  one  ground  of  the  supreme 
value  of  property,  which  one  endeavors  to  get,  and 
the  other  to  keep.  Bonaparte  may  be  said  to  rep 
resent  the  whole  history  of  this  party,  its  youth  and 
its  age ;  yes,  and  with  poetic  justice  its  fate,  in  his 
own.  The  counter-revolution,  the  counter-party, 
still  waits  for  its  organ  and  representative,  in  a 


244  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

lover  and   a   man   of   truly   public   and  universal 
aims. 

Here  was  an  experiment,  under  the  most  favora 
ble  conditions,  of  the  powers  of  intellect  without 
conscience.  Never  was  such  a  leader  so  endowed 
and  so  weaponed ;  never  leader  found  such  aids 
and  followers.  And  what  was  the  result  of  this  vast 
talent  and  power,  of  these  immense  armies,  burned 
cities,  squandered  treasures,  immolated  millions  of 
men,  of  this  demoralized  Europe?  It  came  to  no 
result.  All  passed  away  like  the  smoke  of  his  ar 
tillery,  and  left  no  trace.  He  left  France  smaller, 
poorer,  feebler,  than  he  found  it;  and  the  whole 
contest  for  freedom  was  to  be  begun  again.  The 
attempt  was  in  principle  suicidal.  France  served 
him  with  life  and  limb  and  estate,  as  long  as  it 
could  identify  its  interest  with  him ;  but  when  men 
saw  that  after  victory  was  another  war ;  after  the 
destruction  of  armies,  new  conscriptions  ;  and  they 
who  had  toiled  so  desperately  were  never  nearer  to 
the  reward,  —  they  could  not  spend  what  they  had 
earned,  nor  repose  on  their  down-beds,  or  strut  in 
their  chateaux,  —  they  deserted  him.  Men  found 
that  his  absorbing  egotism  was  deadly  to  all  other 
men.  It  resembled  the  torpedo,  which  inflicts  a 
succession  of  shocks  on  any  one  who  takes  hold  of 
it,  producing  spasms  which  contract  the  muscles  of 
the  hand,  so  that  the  man  can  not  open  his  fingers  ; 


NAPOLEON;  OR,  THE  MAN  OF  THE  WORLD.    245 

and  the  animal  inflicts  new  and  more  violent  shocks, 
until  he  paralyzes  and  kills  his  victim.  So  this  ex 
orbitant  egotist  narrowed,  impoverished  and  ab 
sorbed  the  power  and  existence  of  those  who  served 
him ;  and  the  universal  cry  of  France  and  of  Eu 
rope  in  1814  was,  "  Enough  of  him ;  "  "  Assez  de 
Bonaparte" 

It  was  not  Bonaparte's  fault.  He  did  all  that 
in  him  lay  to  live  and  thrive  without  moral  princi 
ple.  It  was  the  nature  of  things,  the  eternal  law 
of  man  and  of  the  world  which  baulked  and  ruined 
him  ;  and  the  result,  in  a  million  experiments,  will 
be  the  same.  Every  experiment,  by  multitudes  or  by 
individuals,  that  has  a  sensual  and  selfish  aim,  will 
fail.  The  pacific  Fourier  will  be  as  inefficient  as 
the  pernicious  Napoleon.  /As  long  as  our  civiliza 
tion  is  essentially  one  of  property,  of  fences,  of  ex- 
clusiveness,  it  will  be  mocked  by  delusions.  Our 
riches  will  leave  us  sick ;  there  will  be  bitterness  in 
our  laughter,  and  our  wine  will  burn  our  mouth. 
Only  that  good  profits  which  we  can  taste  with 
all  doors  open,  and  which  serves  all  men. 


GOETHE;   OR,  THE  WRITER. 


TnUVERSITT 


VII. 
GOETHE;   OR,   THE  WRITER. 


I  FIND  a  provision  in  the  constitution  of  the 
world  for  the  writer,  or  secretary,  who  is  to  report 
the  doings  of  the  miraculous  spirit  of  life  that  every 
where  throbs  and  works.  His  office  is  a  reception 
of  the  facts  into  the  mind,  and  then  a  selection  of 
the  eminent  and  characteristic  experiences. 

Nature  will  be  reported.  All  things  are  engaged 
in  writing  their  history.  The  planet,  the  pebble, 
goes  attended  by  its  shadow.  The  rolling  rock 
leaves  its  scratches  on  the  mountain ;  the  river  its 
channel  in  the  soil;  the  animal  its  bones  in  the 
stratum  ;  the  fern  and  leaf  their  modest  epitaph  in 
the  coal.  The  falling  drop  makes  its  sculpture  in 
the  sand  or  the  stone.  Not  a  foot  steps  into  the 
snow  or  along  the  ground,  but  prints,  in  characters 
more  or  less  lasting,  a  map  of  its  march.  Every 
act  of  the  man  inscribes  itself  in  the  memories  of 
his  fellows  and  in  his  own  manners  and  face.  The 
air  is  full  of  sounds ;  the  sky,  of  tokens ;  the 
ground  is  all  memoranda  and  signatures,  and  every 


250  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

object  covered  over  with  hints  which  speak  to  the 
intelligent. 

In  nature,  this  self-registration  is  incessant,  and 
the  narrative  is  the  print  of  the  seal.  It  neither 
exceeds  nor  comes  short  of  the  fact.  But  nature 
strives  upward  ;  and,  in  man,  the  report  is  some 
thing  more  than  print  of  the  seal.  It  is  a  new  and 
finer  form  of  the  original.  The  record  is  alive,  as 
that  which  it  recorded  is  alive.  In  man,  the  mem 
ory  is  a  kind  of  looking-glass,  which,  having  received 
the  images  of  surrounding  objects,  is  touched  with 
life,  and  disposes  them  in  a  new  order.  The  facts 
do  not  lie  in  it  inert ;  but  some  subside  and  others 
shine  ;  so  that  soon  we  have  a  new  picture,  com 
posed  of  the  eminent  experiences.  The  man  co 
operates.  He  loves  to  communicate ;  and  that 
which  is  for  him  to  say  lies  as  a  load  on  his  heart 
until  it  is  delivered.  But,  besides  the  universal 
joy  of  conversation,  some  men  are  born  with  exalted 
powers  for  this  second  creation.  Men  are  born  to 
write.  The  gardener  saves  every  slip  and  seed  and 
peach-stone:  his  vocation  is  to  be  a  planter  of 
plants.  Not  less  does  the  writer  attend  his  affair. 
Whatever  he  beholds  or  experiences,  comes  to  him 
as  a  model  and  sits  for  its  picture.  He  counts 
it  all  nonsense  that  they  say,  that  some  things  are 
undescribable.  He  believes  that  all  that  can  be 
thought  can  be  written,  first  or  last ;  and  he  would 


GOETHE;   OR,   THE   WRITER.  251 

report  the  Holy  Ghost,  or  attempt  it.  Nothing 
so  broad,  so  subtle,  or  so  dear,  but  comes  therefore 
commended  to  his  pen,  and  he  will  write.  In  his 
eyes,  a  man  is  the  faculty  of  reporting,  and  the 
universe  is  the  possibility  of  being  reported.  In 
conversation,  in  calamity,  he  finds  new  materials ; 
as  our  German  poet  said,  "  Some  god  gave  me  the 
power  to  paint  what  I  suffer."  He  draws  his  rents 
from  rage  and  pain.  By  acting  rashly,  he  buys  the 
power  of  talking  wisely.  Vexations  and  a  tempest 
of  passion  only  fill  his  sail ;  as  the  good  Luther 
writes,  "  When  I  am  angry,  I  can  pray  well  and 
preach  well :  "  and,  if  we  knew  the  genesis  of  fine 
strokes  of  eloquence,  they  might  recall  the  complai 
sance  of  Sultan  Amurath,  who  struck  off  some 
Persian  heads,  that  his  physician,  Yesalius,  might 
see  the  spasms  in  the  muscles  of  the  neck.  His 
failures  are  the  preparation  of  his  victories.  A 
new  thought  or  a  crisis  of  passion  apprises  him 
that  all  that  he  has  yet  learned  and  written  is  ex 
oteric,  —  is  not  the  fact,  but  some  rumor  of  the 
fact.  What  then?  Does  he  throw  away  the  pen ? 
No ;  he  begins  again  to  describe  in  the  new  light 
which  has  shined  on  him,  —  if,  by  some  means,  he 
may  yet  save  some  true  word.  Nature  conspires. 
Whatever  can  be  thought  can  be  spoken,  and  still 
rises  for  utterance,  though  to  rude  and  stammering 
organs.  If  they  cannot  compass  it,  it  waits  and 


252  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

works,  until  at  last  it  moulds  them  to  its  perfect 
will  and  is  articulated. 

This  striving  after  imitative  expression,  which 
one  meets  every  where,  is  significant  of  the  aim  of 
nature,  but  is  mere  stenography.  There  are  higher 
degrees,  and  nature  has  more  splendid  endowments 
for  those  whom  she  elects  to  a  superior  office ;  for 
the  class  of  scholars  or  writers,  who  see  connection 
where  the  multitude  see  fragments,  and  who  are 
impelled  to  exhibit  the  facts  in  order,  and  so  to 
supply  the  axis  on  which  the  frame  of  things  turns. 
Nature  has  dearly  at  heart  the  formation  of  the 
speculative  man,  or  scholar.  It  is  an  end  never  lost 
sight  of,  and  is  prepared  in  the  original  casting  of 
things.  He  is  no  permissive  or  accidental  appear 
ance,  but  an  organic  agent,  one  of  the  estates  of 
the  realm,  provided  and  prepared  from  of  old  and 
from  everlasting,  in  the  knitting  and  contexture 
of  things.  Presentiments,  impulses,  cheer  him. 
There  is  a  certain  heat  in  the  breast  which  attends 
the  perception  of  a  primary  truth,  which  is  the 
shining  of  the  spiritual  sun  down  into  the  shaft  of 
the  mine.  Every  thought  which  dawns  on  the 
mind,  in  the  moment  of  its  emergence  announces 
its  own  rank,  —  whether  it  is  some  whimsy,  or 
whether  it  is  a  power. 

If  he  have  his  incitements,  there  is,  on  the  other 
side,  invitation  and  need  enough  of  his  gift.  Soci- 


GOETHE;  OR,   THE   WRITER.  253 

ety  has,  at  all  times,  the  same  want,  namely  of  one 
sane  man  with  adequate  powers  of  expression  to 
hold  up  each  object  of  monomania  in  its  right  rela 
tions.  The  ambitious  and  mercenary  bring  their 
last  new  mumbo-jumbo,  whether  tariff,  Texas,  rail 
road,  Romanism,  mesmerism,  or  California ;  and,  by 
detaching  the  object  from  its  relations,  easily  suc 
ceed  in  making  it  seen  in  a  glare ;  and  a  multitude 
go  mad  about  it,  and  they  are  not  to  be  reproved 
or  cured  by  the  opposite  multitude  who  are  kept 
from  this  particular  insanity  by  an  equal  frenzy  on 
another  crotchet.  But  let  one  man  have  the  com 
prehensive  eye  that  can  replace  this  isolated  prodigy 
in  its  right  neighborhood  and  bearings,  —  the  illu 
sion  vanishes,  and  the  returning  reason  of  the  com 
munity  thanks  the  reason  of  the  monitor. 

The  scholar  is  the  man  of  the  ages,  but  he  must 
also  wish  with  other  men  to  stand  well  with  his  con 
temporaries.  But  there  is  a  certain  ridicule,  among 
superficial  people,  thrown  on  the  scholars  or  clerisy, 
which  is  of  no  import  unless  the  scholar  heed  it. 
In  this  country,  the  emphasis  of  conversation  and 
of  public  opinion  commends  the  practical  man ; 
and  the  solid  portion  of  the  community  is  named 
with  significant  respect  in  every  circle.  Our  peo 
ple  are  of  Bonaparte's  opinion  concerning  ideolo 
gists.  Ideas  are  subversive  of  social  order  and 
comfort,  and  at  last  make  a  fool  of  the  possessor. 


254  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

It  is  believed,  the  ordering  a  cargo  of  goods  from 
New  York  to  Smyrna,  or  the  running  up  and 
down  to  procure  a  company  of  subscribers  to  set 
a-going  five  or  ten  thousand  spindles,  or  the  ne 
gotiations  of  a  caucus  and  the  practising  on  the 
prejudices  and  facility  of  country-people  to  secure 
their  votes  in  November,  —  is  practical  and  com 
mendable. 

If  I  were  to  compare  action  of  a  much  higher 
strain  with  a  life  of  contemplation,  I  should  not 
venture  to  pronounce  with  much  confidence  in  fa 
vor  of  the  former.  Mankind  have  such  a  deep 
stake  in  inward  illumination,  that  there  is  much  to 
be  said  by  the  hermit  or  monk  in  defence  of  his 
life  of  thought  and  prayer.  A  certain  partiality, 
a  headiness  and  loss  of  balance,  is  the  tax  which 
all  action  must  pay.  Act,  if  you  like,  —  but  you 
do  it  at  your  peril.  Men's  actions  are  too  strong 
for  them.  Show  me  a  man  who  has  acted  and  who 
has  not  been  the  victim  and  slave  of  his  action. 
What  they  have  done  commits  and  enforces  them  to 
do  the  same  again.  The  first  act,  which  was  to  be 
an  experiment,  becomes  a  sacrament.  The  fiery  re 
former  embodies  his  aspiration  in  some  rite  or  cov 
enant,  and  he  and  his  friends  cleave  to  the  form  and 
lose  the  aspiration.  The  Quaker  has  established 
Quakerism,  the  Shaker  has  established  his  monas 
tery  and  his  dance;  and  although  each  prates  of 


GOETHE;   OR,   THE  WRITER.  255 

spirit,  there  is  no  spirit,  but  repetition,  which  is 
anti-spiritual.  But  where  are  his  new  things  of  to 
day  ?  In  actions  of  enthusiasm  this  drawback  ap 
pears,  but  in  those  lower  activities,  which  have  no 
higher  aim  than  to  make  us  more  comfortable  and 
more  cowardly ;  in  actions  of  cunning,  actions  that 
steal  and  lie,  actions  that  divorce  the  speculative 
from  the  practical  faculty  and  put  a  ban  on  reason 
and  sentiment,  there  is  nothing  else  but  drawback 
and  negation.  The  Hindoos  write  in  their  sacred 
books,  "  Children  only,  and  not  the  learned,  speak 
of  the  speculative  and  the  practical  faculties  as  two. 
They  are  but  one,  for  both  obtain  the  selfsame 
end,  and  the  place  which  is  gained  by  the  followers 
of  the  one  is  gained  by  the  followers  of  the  other. 
That  man  seeth,  who  seeth  that  the  speculative  and 
the  practical  doctrines  are  one."  For  great  action 
must  draw  on  the  spiritual  nature.  The  measure 
of  action  is  the  sentiment  from  which  it  proceeds. 
The  greatest  action  may  easily  be  one  of  the  most 
private  circumstance. 

This  disparagement  will  not  come  from  the  lead 
ers,  but  from  inferior  persons.  The  robust  gentle 
men  who  stand  at  the  head  of  the  practical  class, 
share  the  ideas  of  the  time,  and  have  too  much 
sympathy  with  the  speculative  class.  It  is  not 
from  men  excellent  in  any  kind  that  disparage 
ment  of  any  other  is  to  be  looked  for.  With  such, 


256  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

Talleyrand's  question  is  ever  the  main  one ;  not,  is 
he  rich?  is  he  committed?  is  he  well-meaning?  has 
he  this  or  that  faculty  ?  is  he  of  the  movement  ?  is 
he  of  the  establishment  ?  —  but,  Is  he  any  ~body  ? 
does  he  stand  for  something?  He  must  be  good 
of  his  kind.  That  is  all  that  Talleyrand,  all  that 
State-street,  all  that  the  common-sense  of  mankind 
asks.  Be  real  and  admirable,  not  as  we  know,  but 
as  you  know.  Able  men  do  not  care  in  what  kind 
a  man  is  able,  so  only  that  he  is  able.  A  master 
likes  a  master,  and  does  not  stipulate  whether  it  be 
orator,  artist,  craftsman,  or  king. 

Society  has  really  no  graver  interest  than  the 
well-being  of  the  literary  class.  And  it  is  not  to 
be  denied  that  men  are  cordial  in  their  recognition 
and  welcome  of  intellectual  accomplishments.  Still 
the  writer  does  not  stand  with  us  on  any  command 
ing  ground.  I  think  this  to  be  his  own  fault.  A 
pound  passes  for  a  pound.  There  have  been  times 
when  he  was  a  sacred  person:  he  wrote  Bibles, 
the  first  hymns,  the  codes,  the  epics,  tragic  songs, 
Sibylline  verses,  Chaldean  oracles,  Laconian  sen 
tences,  inscribed  on  temple  walls.  Every  word  was 
true,  and  woke  the  nations  to  new  life.  He  wrote 
without  levity  and  without  choice.  Every  word 
was  carved  before  his  eyes  into  the  earth  and  the 
sky  ;  and  the  sun  and  stars  were  only  letters  of  the 
same  purport  and  of  no  more  necessity.  But  how 


GOETHE;  OR,   THE   WRITER.  257 

can  he  be  honored  when  he  does  not  honor  himself ; 
when  he  loses  himself  in  the  crowd ;  when  he  is  no 
longer  the  lawgiver,  but  the  sycophant,  ducking  to 
the  giddy  opinion  of  a  reckless  public ;  when  he 
must  sustain  with  shameless  advocacy  some  bad 
government,  or  must  bark,  all  the  year  round,  in 
opposition ;  or  write  conventional  criticism,  or  prof 
ligate  novels ;  or  at  any  rate  write  without  thought, 
and  without  recurrence  by  day  and  by  night  to  the 
sources  of  inspiration  ? 

Some  reply  to  these  questions  may  be  furnished 
by  looking  over  the  list  of  men  of  literary  gen 
ius  in  our  age.  Among  these  no  more  instructive 
name  occurs  than  that  of  Goethe  to  represent  the 
powers  and  duties  of  the  scholar  or  writer. 

I  described  Bonaparte  as  a  representative  of  the 
popular  external  life  and  aims  of  the  nineteenth 
century.  Its  other  half,  its  poet,  is  Goethe,  a  man 
quite  domesticated  in  the  century,  breathing  its  air, 
enjoying  its  fruits,  impossible  at  any  earlier  time, 
and  taking  away,  by  his  colossal  parts,  the  reproach 
of  weakness  which  but  for  him  would  lie  on  the 
intellectual  works  of  the  period.  He  appears  at  a 
time  when  a  general  culture  has  spread  itself  and 
has  smoothed  down  all  sharp  individual  traits ; 
when,  in  the  absence  of  heroic  characters,^  social 
comfort  and  co-operation  have  come  in.  There  is 
no  poet,  but  scores  of  poetic  writers ;  no  Colum- 

VOL.  IV  17 


258  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

bus,  but  hundreds  of  post-captains,  with  transit- 
telescope,  barometer  and  concentrated  soup  and 
pemmican  ;  no  Demosthenes,  no  Chatham,  but  any 
number  of  clever  parliamentary  and  forensic  de 
baters  ;  no  prophet  or  saint,  but  colleges  of  divin 
ity  ;  no  learned  man,  but  learned  societies,  a  cheap 
press,  reading-rooms  and  book-clubs  without  num 
ber.  There  was  never  such  a  miscellany  of  facts. 
The  world  extends  itself  like  American  trade.  We 
conceive  Greek  or  Roman  life,  life  in  the  Middle 
Ages,  to  be  a  simple  and  comprehensible  affair ;  but 
modern  life  to  respect  a  multitude  of  things,  which 
is  distracting. 

Goethe  was  the  philosopher  of  this  multiplicity  ; 
hundred-handed,  Argus-eyed,  able  and  happy  to 
cope  with  this  rolling  miscellany  of  facts  and  sci 
ences,  and  by  his  own  versatility  to  dispose  of  them 
with  ease  ;  a  manly  mind,  unembarrassed  by  the 
variety  of  coats  of  convention  with  which  life  had 
got  encrusted,  easily  able  by  his  subtlety  to  pierce 
these  and  to  draw  his  strength  from  nature,  with 
which  he  lived  in  full  communion.  What  is 
strange  too,  he  lived  in  a  small  town,  in  a  petty 
state,  in  a  defeated  state,  and  in  a  time  when  Ger 
many  played  no  such  leading  part  in  the  world's 
affairs  as  to  swell  the  bosom  of  her  sons  with  any 
metropolitan  pride,  such  as  might  have  cheered  a 
French,  or  English,  or  once,  a  Roman  or  Attic 


GOETHE;   OR,   THE   WRITER.  259 

genius.  Yet  there  is  no  trace  of  provincial  limita 
tion  in  his  muse.  He  is  not  a  debtor  to  his  position, 
but  was  born  with  a  free  and  controlling  genius. 

The  Helena,  or  the  second  part  of  Faust,  is  a 
philosophy  of  literature  set  in  poetry  ;  the  work  of 
one  who  found  himself  the  master  of  histories,  my 
thologies,  philosophies,  sciences  and  national  litera 
tures,  in  the  encyclopedical  manner  in  which  mod 
ern  erudition,  with  its  international  intercourse  of 
the  whole  earth's  population,  researches  into  In 
dian,  Etruscan  and  all  Cyclopean  arts ;  geology, 
chemistry,  astronomy ;  and  every  one  of  these  king 
doms  assuming  a  certain  aerial  and  poetic  charac 
ter,  by  reason  of  the  multitude.  One  looks  at  a 
king  with  reverence  ;  but  if  one  should  chance  to 
be  at  a  congress  of  kings,  the  eye  would  take  liber 
ties  with  the  peculiarities  of  each.  These  are  not 
wild  miraculous  songs,  but  elaborate  forms  to  which 
the  poet  has  confided  the  results  of  eighty  years  of 
observation.  This  reflective  and  critical  wisdom 
makes  the  poem  more  truly  the  flower  of  this  time. 
It  dates  itself.  Still  he  is  a  poet,  —  poet  of  a 
prouder  laurel  than  any  contemporary,  and,  under 
this  plague  of  microscopes  (for  he  seems  to  see  out 
of  every  pore  of  his  skin),  strikes  the  harp  with  a 
hero's  strength  and  grace. 

The  wonder  of  the  book  is  its  superior  intelli 
gence.  In  the  menstruum  of  this  man's  wit,  the 


260  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 


past  and  the  present  ages,  and  their  religions,  pol 
itics  and  modes  of  thinking,  are  dissolved  into 
archetypes  and  ideas.  What  new  mythologies  sail 
through  his  head  !  The  Greeks  said  that  Alexan 
der  went  as  far  as  Chaos ;  Goethe  went,  only  the 
other  day,  as  far  ;  and  one  step  farther  he  hazarded, 
and  brought  himself  safe  back. 

There  is  a  heart-cheering  freedom  in  his  specula 
tion.  The  immense  horizon  which  journeys  with 
us  lends  its  majesty  to  trifles  and  to  matters  of 
convenience  and  necessity,  as  to  solemn  and  festal 
performances.  He  was  the  soul  of  his  century.  If 
that  was  learned,  and  had  become,  by  population, 
compact  organization  and  drill  of  parts,  one  great 
Exploring  Expedition,  accumulating  a  glut  of  facts 
and  fruits  too  fast  for  any  hitherto-existing  savans 
to  classify,  —  this  man's  mind  had  ample  chambers 
for  the  distribution  of  all.  He  had  a  power  to 
unite  the  detached  atoms  again  by  their  own  law. 
He  has  clothed  our  modern  existence  with  poetry. 
Amid  littleness  and  detail,  he  detected  the  Genius 
of  life,  the  old  cunning  Proteus,  nestling  close 
beside  us^  and  showed  that  the  dulness  and  prose 
we  ascribe  to  the  age  was  only  another  of  his 
masks :  — 

"  His  very  flight  is  presence  in  disguise  :  " 
—  that  he  had  put  off  a  gay  uniform  for  a  fatigue 


GOETHE;   OR,   THE  WRITER.  261 

dress,  and  was  not  a  whit  less  vivacious  or  rich  in 
Liverpool  or  the  Hague  than  once  in  Rome  or  An- 
tioch.  He  sought  him  in  public  squares  and  main 
streets,  in  boulevards  and  hotels ;  and,  in  the  solid- 
est  kingdom  of  routine  and  the  senses,  he  showed 
the  lurking  demonic  power  ;  that,  in  actions  of 
routine,  a  thread  of  mythology  and  fable  spins  it 
self :  and  this,  by  tracing  the  pedigree  of  every 
usage  and  practice,  every  institution,  utensil  and 
means,  home  to  its  origin  in  the  structure  of  man. 
He  had  an  extreme  impatience  of  conjecture  and 
of  rhetoric.  "  I  have  guesses  enough  of  my  own ; 
if  a  man  write  a  book,  let  him  set  down  only  what 
he  knows."  He  writes  in  the  plainest  and  lowest 
tone,  omitting  a  great  deal  more  than  he  writes, 
and  putting  ever  a  thing  for  a  word.  He  has  ex 
plained  the  distinction  between  the  antique  and 
the  modern  spirit  and  art.  He  has  denned  art,  its 
scope  and  laws.  He  has  said  the  best  things  about 
nature  that  ever  were  said.  He  treats  nature  as 
the  old  philosophers,  as  the  seven  wise  masters  did, 
—  and,  with  whatever  loss  of  French  tabulation 
and  dissection,  poetry  and  humanity  remain  to  us ; 
and  they  have  some  doctoral  skill.  Eyes  are  bet 
ter  on  the  whole  than  telescopes  or  microscopes. 
He  has  contributed  a  key  to  many  parts  of  nature, 
through  the  rare  turn  for  unity  and  simplicity  in 
his  mind.  Thus  Goethe  suggested  the  leading  idea 


262  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

of  modern  botany,  that  a  leaf  or  the  eye  of  a  leaf 
is  the  unit  of  botany,  and  that  every  part  of  the 
plant  is  only  a  transformed  leaf  to  meet  a  new  con 
dition  ;  and,  by  varying  the  conditions,  a  leaf  may 
be  converted  into  any  other  organ,  and  any  other 
organ  into  a  leaf.  In  like  manner,  in  osteology,  he 
assumed  that  one  vertebra  of  the  spine  might  be 
considered  as  the  unit  of  the  skeleton  :  the  head 
was  only  the  uppermost  vertebrae  transformed. 
"  The  plant  goes  from  knot  to  knot,  closing  at  last 
with  the  flower  and  the  seed.  So  the  tape-worm, 
the  caterpillar,  goes  from  knot  to  knot  and  closes 
with  the  head.  Man  and  the  higher  animals  are 
built  up  through  the  vertebrae,  the  powers  being 
concentrated  in  the  head."  In  optics  again  he  re 
jected  the  artificial  theory  of  seven  colors,  and  con 
sidered  that  every  color  was  the  mixture  of  light 
and  darkness  in  new  proportions.  It  is  really  of 
very  little  consequence  what  topic  he  writes  upon. 
He  sees  at  every  pore,  and  has  a  certain  gravita 
tion  towards  truth.  He  will  realize  what  you  say. 
He  hates  to  be  trifled  with  and  to  be  made  to  say 
over  again  some  old  wife's  fable  that  has  had  pos 
session  of  men's  faith  these  thousand  years.  He 
may  as  well  see  if  it  is  true  as  another.  He  sifts 
it.  I  am  here,  he  would  say,  to  be  the  measure  and 
judge  of  these  things.  Why  should  I  take  them 
on  trust  ?  And  therefore  what  he  says  of  religion, 


GOETHE;   OR,   THE  WRITER.  263 

of  passion,  of  marriage,  of  manners,  of  property, 
of  paper-money,  of  periods  of  belief,  of  omens,  of 
luck,  or  whatever  else,  refuses  to  be  forgotten. 

Take  the  most  remarkable  example  that  could 
occur  of  this  tendency  to  verify  every  term  in  pop 
ular  use.  The  Devil  had  played  an  important  part 
in  mythology  in  all  times.  Goethe  would  have  no 
word  that  does  not  cover  a  thing.  The  same  meas 
ure  will  still  serve :  "  I  have  never  heard  of  any 
crime  which  I  might  not  have  committed."  So  he 
flies  at  the  throat  of  this  imp.  He  shall  be  real ; 
he  shall  be  modern ;  he  shall  be  European ;  he  shall 
dress  like  a  gentleman,  and  accept  the  manners, 
and  walk  in  the  streets,  and  be  well  initiated  in  the 
life  of  Vienna  and  of  Heidelberg  in  1820,  —  or  he 
shall  not  exist.  Accordingly,  he  stripped  him  of 
inythologic  gear,  of  horns,  cloven  foot,  harpoon 
tail,  brimstone  and  blue-fire,  and  instead  of  looking 
in  books  and  pictures,  looked  for  him  in  his  own 
mind,  in  every  shade  of  coldness,  selfishness  and 
unbelief  that,  in  crowds  or  in  solitude,  darkens  over 
the  human  thought,  —  and  found  that  the  portrait 
gained  reality  and  terror  by  every  thing  he  added 
and  by  every  thing  he  took  away.  He  found  that 
the  essence  of  this  hobgoblin  which  had  hovered 
in  shadow  about  the  habitations  of  men  ever  since 
there  were  men,  was  pure  intellect,  applied,  —  as 
always  there  is  a  tendency,  —  to  the  service  of 


264  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

the  senses :  and  he  flimg  into  literature,  in  his  Me- 
phistopheles,  the  first  organic  figure  that  has  been 
added  for  some  ages,  and  which  will  remain  as  long 
as  the  Prometheus. 

I  have  no  design  to  enter  into  any  analysis  of 
his  numerous  works.  They  consist  of  translations, 
criticism,  dramas,  lyric  and  every  other  description 
of  poems,  literary  journals  and  portraits  of  distin 
guished  men.  Yet  I  cannot  omit  to  specify  the 
"  Wilhelm  Meister." 

"  Wilhelm  Meister  "  is  a  novel  in  every  sense, 
the  first  of  its  kind,  called  by  its  admirers  the  only 
delineation  of  modern  society,  —  as  if  other  nov 
els,  those  of  Scott  for  example,  dealt  with  costume 
and  condition,  this  with  the  spirit  of  life.  It  is  a 
book  over  which  some  veil  is  still  drawn.  It  is 
read  by  very  intelligent  persons  with  wonder  and 
delight.  It  is  preferred  by  some  such  to  Hamlet, 
as  a  work  of  genius.  I  suppose  no  book  of  this 
century  can  compare  with  it  in  its  delicious  sweet 
ness,  so  new,  so  provoking  to  the  mind,  gratifying 
it  with  so  many  and  so  solid  thoughts,  just  in 
sights  into  life  and  manners  and  characters;  so 
many  good  hints  for  the  conduct  of  life,  so  many 
unexpected  glimpses  into  a  higher  sphere,  and 
never  a  trace  of  rhetoric  or  dulness.  A  very 
provoking  book  to  the  curiosity  of  young  men  of 
genius,  but  a  very  unsatisfactory  one.  Lovers  of 


GOETHE;  OR,   THE  WRITER.  265 

light  reading,  those  who  look  in  it  for  the  enter 
tainment  they  find  in  a  romance,  are  disappointed. 
On  the  other  hand,  those  who  begin  it  with  the 
higher  hope  to  read  in  it  a  v/orthy  history  of 
genius,  and  the  just  award  of  the  laurel  to  its 
toils  and  denials,  have  also  reason  to  complain. 
We  had  an  English  romance  here,  not  long  ago, 
professing  to  embody  the  hope  of  a  new  age  and 
to  unfold  the  political  hope  of  the  party  called 
4  Young  England,'  —  in  which  the  only  reward 
of  virtue  is  a  seat  in  Parliament  and  a  peerage. 
Goethe's  romance  has  a  conclusion  as  lame  and 
immoral.  George  Sand,  in  Consuelo  and  its  con 
tinuation,  has  sketched  a  truer  and  more  dignified 
picture.  In  the  progress  of  the  story,  the  char 
acters  of  the  hero  and  heroine  expand  at  a  rate 
that  shivers  the  porcelain  chess-table  of  aristocratic 
convention :  they  quit  the  society  and  habits  of 
their  rank,  they  lose  their  wealth,  they  become 
the  servants  of  great  ideas  and  of  the  most  gen 
erous  social  ends ;  until  at  last  the  hero,  who  is 
the  centre  and  fountain  of  an  association  for  the 
rendering  of  the  noblest  benefits  to  the  human 
race,  no  longer  answers  to  his  own  titled  name  ; 
it  sounds  foreign  and  remote  in  his  ear.  "  I  am 
only  man,"  he  says ;  "I  breathe  and  work  for 
man ;  "  and  this  in  poverty  and  extreme  sacrifices. 
Goethe's  hero,  on  the  contrary,  has  so  many  weak- 


266  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

nesses  and  impurities  and  keeps  such  bad  com 
pany,  that  the  sober  English  public,  when  the 
book  was  translated,  were  disgusted.  And  yet  it 
is  so  crammed  with  wisdom,  with  knowledge  of 
the  world  and  with  knowledge  of  laws;  the  per 
sons  so  truly  and  subtly  drawn,  and  with  such  few 
^  \l  W-  smokes,  an<l  n°t  a  word  too  much,  —  the  book  re- 
•  mains  ever  so  new  and  unexhausted,  that  we  must 
even  let  it  go  its  way  and  be  willing  to  get  what 
good  from  it  we  can,  assured  that  it  has  only 
begun  its  office  and  has  millions  of  readers  yet  to 
serve. 

The  argument  is  the  passage  of  a  democrat  to 
the  aristocracy,  using  both  words  in  their  best 
sense.  And  this  passage  is  not  made  in  any  mean 
or  creeping  way,  but  through  the  hall  door.  Na 
ture  and  character  assist,  and  the  rank  is  made 
real  by  sense  and  probity  in  the  nobles.  No  gen 
erous  youth  can  escape  this  charm  of  reality  in 
the  book,  so  that  it  is  highly  stimulating  to  intel 
lect  and  courage. 

The  ardent  and  holy  Novalis  characterized  the 
book  as  "  thoroughly  modern  and  prosaic ;  the  ro 
mantic  is  completely  levelled  in  it;  so  is  the  po 
etry  of  nature ;  the  wonderful.  The  book  treats 
only  of  the  ordinary  affairs  of  men :  it  is  a  poet 
icized  civic  and  domestic  story.  The  wonderful 
in  it  is  expressly  treated  as  fiction  and  enthusi- 


GOETHE;   OR,   THE   WRITER.  267 

astic  dreaming : "  —  and  yet,  what  is  also  charac 
teristic,  Novalis  soon  returned  to  this  book,  and 
it  remained  his  favorite  reading  to  the  end  of  his 
life. 

What  distinguishes  Goethe  for  French  and 
English  readers  is  a  property  which  he  shares 
with  his  nation,  —  a  habitual  reference  to  interior 
truth.  In  England  and  in  America  there  is  a 
respect  for  talent ;  and,  if  it  is  exerted  in  support 
of  any  ascertained  or  intelligible  interest  or  party, 
or  in  regular  opposition  to  any,  the  public  is  satis 
fied.  In  France  there  is  even  a  greater  delight 
in  intellectual  brilliancy  for  its  own  sake.  And 
in  all  these  countries,  men  of  talent  write  from 
talent.  It  is  enough  if  the  understanding  is  oc 
cupied,  the  taste  propitiated,  —  so  many  columns, 
so  many  hours,  filled  in  a  lively  and  creditable 
way.  The  German  intellect  wants  the  French 
sprightliness,  the  fine  practical  understanding  of 
the  English,  and  the  American  adventure ;  but  it 
has  a  certain  probity,  which  never  rests  in  a  su 
perficial  performance,  but  asks  steadily,  To  what 
end?  A  German  public  asks  for  a  controlling 
sincerity.  Here  is  activity  of  thought ;  but  what 
is  it  for  ?  What  does  the  man  mean  ?  Whence, 
whence  all  these  thoughts  ? 

Talent  alone  can  not  make  a  writer.  There 
must  be  a  man  behind  the  book ;  a  personality 


268  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

which  by  birth  and  quality  is  pledged  to  the  doc 
trines  there  set  forth,  and  which  exists  to  see  and 
state  things  so,  and  not  otherwise ;  holding  things 
because  they  are  things.  If  he  cannot  rightly 
express  himself  to-day,  the  same  things  subsist 
and  will -open  themselves  to-morrow.  There  lies 
the  burden  on  his  mind,  —  the  burden  of  truth 
to  be  declared,  —  more  or  less  understood ;  and  it 
constitutes  his  business  and  calling  in  the  world 
to  see  those  facts  through,  and  to  make  them 
known.  What  signifies  that  he  trips  and  stam 
mers;  that  his  voice  is  harsh  or  hissing;  that 
his  method  or  his  tropes  are  inadequate?  That 
message  will  find  method  and  imagery,  articulation 
and  melody.  Though  he  were  dumb  it  would 
speak.  If  notj  —  if  there  be  no  such  God's  word 
in  the  map,  —  what  care  we  how  adroit,  how  fluent, 
how  brilliant  he  is  ? 

It  makes  a  great  difference  to  the  force  of  any 
sentence  whether  there  be  a  man  behind  it  or  no. 
In  the  learned  journal,  in  the  influential  news 
paper,  I  aiscern  no  form ;  only  some  irresponsi 
ble  shadow  ;  oftener  some  moneyed  corporation,  or 
some  dangler  who  hopes,  in  the  mask  and  robes  of 
his  paragraph,  to  pass  for  somebody.  But  through 
every  clause  and  part  of  speech  of  a  right  book  I 
meet  the  eyes  of  the  most  determined  of  men  ;  his 
force  and  terror  inundate  every  word;  the  commas 


GOETHE;   OR,   THE  WRITER.  269 

and  dashes  are  alive ;  so  that  the  writing  is  athletic 
and  nimble,  —  can  go  far  and  live  long. 

In  England  and  America,  one  may  be  an  adept 
in  the  writings  of  a  Greek  or  Latin  poet,  without 
any  poetic  taste  or  fire.  That  a  man  has  spent 
years  on  Plato  and  Proclus,  does  not  afford  a  pre 
sumption  that  he  holds  heroic  opinions,  or  under 
values  the  fashions  of  his  town.  But  the  German 
nation  have  the  most  ridiculous  good  faith  on  these 
subjects  :  the  student,  out  of  the  lecture-room,  still 
broods  on  the  lessons ;  and  the  professor  can  not 
divest  himself  of  the  fancy  that  the  truths  of  phi 
losophy  have  some  application  to  Berlin  and  Mu 
nich.  This  earnestness  enables  them  to  outsee 
men  of  much  more  talent.  Hence  almost  all  the 
valuable  distinctions  which  are  current  in  higher 
conversation  have  been  derived  to  us  from  Ger 
many.  But  whilst  men  distinguished  for  wit  and 
learning,  in  England  and  France,  adopt  their  study 
and  their  side  with  a  certain  levity,  and  are  not 
understood  to  be  very  deeply  ei^mged,  from 
grounds  of  character,  to  the  topic  or  the  part  they 
espouse,  —  Goethe,  the  head  and  body  of  the  Ger 
man  nation,  does  not  speak  from  talent,  but  the 
truth  shines  through :  he  is  very  wise,  though  his 
talent  often  veils  his  wisdom.  However  excellent 
his  sentence  is,  he  has  somewhat  better  in  view. 
It  awakens  my  curiosity.  He  has  the  formidable 


270  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

independence  which  converse  with  truth  gives  : 
hear  you,  or  forbear,  his  fact  abides  ;  and  your  in 
terest  in  the  writer  is  not  confined  to  his  story  and 
he  dismissed  from  memory  when  he  has  performed 
his  task  creditably,  as  a  baker  when  he  has  left  his 
loaf ;  but  his  work  is  the  least  part  of  him.  The 
old  Eternal  Genius  who  built  the  world  has  con 
fided  himself  more  to  this  man  than  to  any  other. 

I  dare  not  say  that  Goethe  ascended  to  the  high 
est  grounds  from  which  genius  has  spoken.  He 
has  not  worshipped  the  highest  unity ;  he  is  inca 
pable  of  a  self-surrender  to  the  moral  sentiment. 
There  are  nobler  strains  in  poetry  than  any  he  has 
sounded.  There  are  writers  poorer  in  talent,  whose 
tone  is  purer  and  more  touches  the  heart.  Goethe 
can  never  be  dear  to  men.  His  is  not  even  the 
devotion  to  pure  truth ;  but  to  truth  for  the  sake  of 
culture.  He  has  no  aims  less  large  than  the  con 
quest  of  universal  nature,  of  universal  truth,  to  be 
his  portion :  a  man  not  to  be  bribed,  nor  deceived, 
nor  overawed  ;  of  a  stoical  self-command  and  self- 
denial,  and  having  one  test  for  all  men, —  What 
can  you  teach  me  ?  All  possessions  are  valued  by 
him  for  that  only  ;  rank,  privileges,  health,  time, 
Being  itself. 

He  is  the  type  of  culture,  the  amateur  of  all  arts 
and  sciences  and  events  ;  artistic,  but  not  artist ; 
spiritual,  but  not  spiritualist.  There  is  nothing  he 


GOETHE;  OR,  THE  WRITER.  271 

had  not  right  to  know :  there  is  no  weapon  in  the 
armory  of  universal  genius  lie  did  not  take  into 
his  hand,  but  with  peremptory  heed  that  he  should 
not  be  for  a  moment  prejudiced  by  his  instruments. 
He  lays  a  ray  of  light  under  every  fact,  and  be 
tween  himself  and  his  dearest  property.  From 
him  nothing  was  hid,  nothing  withholden.  The 
lurking  daemons  sat  to  him,  and  the  saint  who  saw 
the  daemons;  and  the  metaphysical  elements  took 
form.  "  Piety  itself  is  no  aim,  but  only  a  means 
whereby  through  purest  inward  peace  we  may  at 
tain  to  highest  culture."  And  his  penetration  of 
every  secret  of  the  fine  arts  will  make  Goethe  still 
more  statuesque.  His  affections  help  him,  like  wo 
men  employed  by  Cicero  to  worm  out  the  secret  of 
conspirators.  Enmities  he  has  none.  Enemy  of 
him  you  may  be,  —  if  so  you  shall  teach  him  aught 
which  your  good-will  cannot,  were  it  only  what  ex 
perience  will  accrue  from  your  ruin.  Enemy  and 
welcome,  but  enemy  on  high  terms.  He  cannot 
hate  any  body ;  his  time  is  worth  too  much.  Tem 
peramental  antagonisms  may  be  suffered,  but  like 
feuds  of  emperors,  who  fight  dignifiedly  across 
kingdoms. 

His  autobiography,  under  the  title  of  "  Poetry 
and  Truth  out  of  my  Life,"  is  the  expression  of 
the  idea,  —  now  familiar  to  the  world  through  the 
German  mind,  but  a  novelty  to  England,  Old  and 


272  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

New,  when  that  book  appeared,  —  that  a  man  ex 
ists  for  culture ;  not  for  what  he  can  accomplish, 
but  for  what  can  be  accomplished  in  him.  The 
reaction  of  things  on  the  man  is  the  only  note 
worthy  result.  An  intellectual  man  can  see  him 
self  as  a  third  person  ;  therefore  his  faults  and  de 
lusions  interest  him  equally  with  his  successes. 
Though  he  wishes  to  prosper  in  affairs,  he  wishes 
more  to  know  the  history  and  destiny  of  man  ; 
whilst  the  clouds  of  egotists  drifting  about  him 
are  only  interested  in  a  low  success. 

This  idea  reigns  in  the  "Dichtung  und  Wahr- 
heit "  and  directs  the  selection  of  the  incidents  ; 
and  nowise  the  external  importance  of  events,  the 
rank  of  the  personages,  or  the  bulk  of  incomes.  Of 
course  the  book  affords  slender  materials  for  what 
would  be  reckoned  with  us  a  "Life  of  Goethe;"  — 
few  dates,  no  correspondence,  no  details  of  offices 
or  employments,  no  light  on  his  marriage  ;  and  a 
period  of  ten  years,  that  should  be  the  most  active 
in  his  life,  after  his  settlement  at  Weimar,  is  sunk 
in  silence.  Meantime  certain  love-affairs  that  came 
to  nothing,  as  people  say,  have  the  strangest  impor 
tance  :  he  crowds  us  with  details  :  —  certain  whim 
sical  opinions,  cosmogonies  and  religions  of  his  own 
invention,  and  especially  his  relations  to  remarka 
ble  minds  and  to  critical  epochs  of  thought :  — - 
these  he  magnifies.  His  "  Daily  and  Yearly  Jour- 


GOETHE;  OR,   THE  WRITER.  273 

nal,"  his  "  Italian  Travels,"  his  "  Campaign  in 
France  "  and  the  historical  part  of  his  "  Theory  of 
Colors,"  have  the  same  interest.  In  the  last,  he 
rapidly  notices  Kepler,  Roger  Bacon,  Galileo,  New 
ton,  Voltaire,  &c. ;  and  the  charm  of  this  portion  of 
the  book  consists  in  the  simplest  statement  of  the 
relation  betwixt  these  grandees  of  European  scien 
tific  history  and  himself ;  the  mere  drawing  of  the 
lines  from  Goethe  to  Kepler,  from  Goethe  to  Ba 
con,  from  Goethe  to  Newton.  The  drawing  of  the 
line  is,  for  the  time  and  person,  a  solution  of  the 
formidable  problem,  and  gives  pleasure  when  Iph- 
igenia  and  Faust  do  not,  without  any  cost  of  inven 
tion  comparable  to  that  of  Iphigenia  and  Faust. 

This  lawgiver  of  art  is  not  an  artist.  Was  it 
that  he  knew  too  much,  that  his  sight  was  micro 
scopic  and  interfered  with  the  just  perspective,  the 
seeing  of  the  whole  ?  He  is  fragmentary ;  a  writer 
of  occasional  poems  and  of  an  encyclopaedia  of  sen 
tences.  When  he  sits  down  to  write  a  drama  or  a 
tale,  he  collects  and  sorts  his  observations  from  a 
hundred  sides,  and  combines  them  into  the  body  as 
fitly  as  he  can.  A  great  deal  refuses  to  incorpo 
rate  :  this  he  adds  loosely  as  letters  of  the  parties, 
leaves  from  their  journals,  or  the  like.  A  great 
deal  still  is  left  that  will  not  find  any  place.  This 
the  bookbinder  alone  can  give  any  cohesion  to ;  and 
hence,  notwithstanding  the  looseness  of  many  of  his 

VOL.  IV.  18 


274  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

works,  we  have  volumes  of  detached  paragraphs, 
aphorisms,  Xenien,  &c. 

I  suppose  the  worldly  tone  of  his  tales  grew  out 
of  the  calculations  of  self-culture.  It  was  the  in 
firmity  of  an  admirable  scholar,  who  loved  the 
world  out  of  gratitude  ;  who  knew  where  libraries, 
galleries,  architecture,  laboratories,  savans  and  lei 
sure,  were  to  be  had,  and  who  did  not  quite  trust 
the  compensations  of  poverty  and  nakedness.  Soc 
rates  loved  Athens  ;  Montaigne,  Paris  ;  and  Ma 
dame  de  Stael  said  she  was  only  vulnerable  on  that 
side  (namely,  of  Paris).  It  has  its  favorable  as 
pect.  All  the  geniuses  are  usually  so  ill  assorted 
and  sickly  that  one  is  ever  wishing  them  somewhere 
else.  We  seldom  see  any  body  who  is  not  uneasy 
or  afraid  to  live.  There  is  a  slight  blush  of  shame 
on  the  cheek  of  good  men  and  aspiring  men,  and  a 
spice  of  caricature.  But  this  man  was  entirely  at 
home  and  happy  in  his  century  and  the  world. 
None  was  so  fit  to  live,  or  more  heartily  enjoyed 
the  game.  In  this  aim  of  culture,  which  is  the 
genius  of  his  works,  is  their  power.  The  idea  of 
absolute,  eternal  truth,  without  reference  to  my 
own  enlargement  by  it,  is  higher.  The  surrender 
to  the  torrent  of  poetic  inspiration  is  higher ;  but 
compared  with  any  motives  on  which  books  are 
written  in  England  and  America,  this  is  very  truth, 
and  has  the  power  to  inspire  which  belongs  to  truth. 


GOETHE;   OR,   THE   WRITER.  275 

Thus  has  he  brought  back  to  a  book  some  of  its 
ancient  might  and  dignity. 

Goethe,  coming  into  an  over-civilized  time  and 
country,  when  original  talent  was  oppressed  under 
the  load  of  books  and  mechanical  auxiliaries  and 
the  distracting  variety  of  claims,  taught  men  how 
to  dispose  of  this  mountainous  miscellany  and  make 
it  subservient.  I  join  Napoleon  with  Mm,  as  being 
both  representatives  of  the  impatience  and  reaction 
of  nature  against  the  morgue  of  conventions,  —  two 
stern  realists,  who,  with  their  scholars,  have  sever 
ally  set  the  axe  at  the  root  of  the  tree  of  cant  and 
seeming,  for  this  time  and  for  all  time.  This  cheer 
ful  laborer,  with  no  external  popularity  or  provoca 
tion,  drawing  his  motive  and  his  plan  from  his  own 
breast,  tasked  himself  with  stints  for  a  giant,  and 
without  relaxation  or  rest,  except  by  alternating 
his  pursuits,  worked  on  for  eighty  years  with  the 
steadiness  of  his  first  zeal. 

It  is  the  last  lesson  of  modern  science  that  the 
highest  simplicity  of  structure  is  produced,  not  by 
few  elements,  but  by  the  highest  complexity.  Man 
is  the  most  composite  of  all  creatures ;  the  wheel- 
insect,  volvox  globator,  is  at  the  other  extreme. 
We  shall  learn  to  draw  rents  and  revenues  from 
the  immense  patrimony  of  the  old  and  the  recent 
ages.  Goethe  teaches  courage,  and  the  equivalence 
of  all  times ;  that  the  disadvantages  of  any  epoch 


276  REPRESENTATIVE  MEN. 

exist  only  to  the  faint-hearted.  Genius  hovers 
with  his  sunshine  and  music  close  by  the  darkest 
and  deafest  eras.  No  mortgage,  no  attainder,  will 
hold  on  men  or  hours.  The  world  is  young :  the 
former  great  men  call  to  us  affectionately.  We 
too  must  write  Bibles,  to  unite  again  the  heavens 
and  the  earthly  world.  The  secret  of  genius  is  to 
suffer  no  fiction  to  exist  for  us  ;  to  realize  all  that 
we  know ;  in  the  high  refinement  of  modern  life, 
in  arts,  in  sciences,  in  books,  in  men,  to  exact  good 
faith,  reality  and  a  purpose ;  and  first,  last,  midst 
and  without  end,  to  honor  every  truth  by  use. 


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